Percivelly
by Torns
Summary: Percy Jackson: once a nobody in a world full of heroes. With courage and grit, he clawed his way up the unknown darkness, conquered himself, and paved the way for a generation of peace and progress. Resting before the final battle, Malcolm tells the story of how it all began, recalling a mysterious boy, his strange powers, and his even stranger habits.
1. Book 1, Act 1

**BOOK ONE: THE ILLUSTRIOUS P. JACKSON**

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What if we don't make it? What are you talking about? It's way too late to be thinking about that kind of thing. Go to sleep.

… You're really worrying about this, huh? Alright, alright, here, sit down. To be honest, I can't sleep either. And hey, we have some time before shit _really_ hits the fan, so I'll tell you a story.

What? No, I'm not getting old. It's a story about my good friend, Percy Jackson. Ah, that got your attention, didn't it? I thought it would.

I know you won't know this one, too, because it's not as big of a deal as all the other stuff he went through, so people tend to leave it out. Saving the world just sounds flashier. My memory's pretty good, but I might be a little iffy on the details, so consider this to be around… say, ninety percent accurate. Eighty percent.

…. Okay, seventy-five.

You want some cocoa or something? No? Great. Let's begin.

In seventh grade, my parents sent me away to Quint Preparatory School. If you haven't heard of it, it's like the kind of thing you see in movies; pretty much a castle with acres of forests all around, a giant lake with water clearer than the stuff they sell you in bottles, carpeted floors, mahogany desks and closets… you know, the works. It's the kind of place where you can get a detention for not tucking in your shirt.

To be honest, I didn't really like it there, and I didn't end up making that many friends. I didn't care about any of that, though. The only thing I cared about was the list.

They had this list they put up on a bulletin board right next to the main office at the end of every month, showing the top fifty students of each grade. When I heard about it, I figured I'd be a shoe-in for the number one spot. I mean, it's _me_ we're talking about; the guy who's been acing every assignment he's gotten since kindergarten. So, imagine my surprise when, one day, shoving my way through the crowd that always bunched together whenever they put that list up, I saw my name in second, right under this son of a bitch asshole _P. Jackson_.

I say that because that's what I thought when I saw it. Look, you guys have to understand that there's a reason I've been the head of the Athena cabin for three years now, and it's not because I can knit a presentable scarf or because I keep getting my dad to bake us a platoon of brownies once a summer. It's because I'm damn smart. And when I was twelve, I was _very_ aware of this, and very proud of it. I couldn't believe that anyone was getting better grades than me. I figured that this P. Jackson guy must've wormed his way into the top spot by some kind of fluke. I dunno, maybe he blackmailed the teachers or something.

So, the next time it happened… Let's just say it was a good thing my dad forced me to sign up for track, because I had a lot of pent up anger to burn, even if those 400-meter dashes killed my calves for a good three months.

This carried on the whole year. Every single month, I checked that list to see my _M. Pace_ under that _P. Jackson_ , and every month I'd pull my hair out trying to figure out how he was doing it. There had to be some sort of trick to it, I thought. I read my textbooks front and back each, _twice_. I could write a fucking Pulitzer-winning paper on _Animal Farm_. True, I couldn't get perfect scores on everything, but come on, who could? I'd get a point off some pop quiz, and that'd take me out of the running for first right there. I never complained to anyone—I was a quiet kid all things considered—but my roommate would flinch back every time I'd look at him, like he'd come _this_ close to getting slugged in the face. He didn't spend that much time in our room, now that I think about it. Oh well.

It should be obvious by now that the one driving me insane was Percy, who'd apparently been there since a year before. No, he's not smarter than me, I can tell you're thinking that. There _was_ a trick to it, and I was pissed when he told me. Anyway, I competed with him all year, losing every single time, getting my pride pounded into the dirt bit by bit. Then finally, on the last listing the day before school let out, I went over to the main office, bowled people over until I could get a clear view, and saw it. One, _P. Jackson_. Two _, M. Pace_. I had lost again.

Now, I hadn't come face-to-face with Percy at all up to this point. We were in different dorms, had different schedules for classes, and on top of that he was always off doing something—who knows what or where. No one really knew anything about him, and he didn't ever hang out with anyone as much as people seemed to like him. Well, maybe _like_ is a strong word. It was more that they could appreciate him when he was there, like a TV in a sports bar; it adds to the atmosphere, and if there's a big game on then you pay attention, but otherwise you wouldn't really mind it if someone turned it off.

Yeah, it's hard to believe with him, right? Just bear with me here.

After losing to him so many times, and now with the last straw, so to speak, I'll admit that I took things a bit far. On the final day of school, we'd have an assembly, you know, to say how proud they were of us and that we had a great legacy to live up to and all that. Grades sixth through eight would get stuffed into the gym and be forced to sit on these super uncomfortable plastic chairs, and there'd be a ton of parents everywhere, and the AC was never cold enough, and we still had to wear our uniforms with the ties… All in all, not a good time. It was also my one shot at getting back at Percy—now my ultimate nemesis—since it was the last time before summer vacation that we'd be in the same room.

Through my many connections—Connor and Travis, who were more than happy to help me out even if it was from across the country—I managed to acquire a good few fireworks. And these weren't some cute little bottle rockets; I'm talking the stuff they use for the Fourth of July here. I cut out the gunpowder in there and bagged it. After that, I made sure that my homeroom would sit on the row right behind his, by a good combination of subterfuge, psychologic manipulation, and mostly finding the floor plans they have for events like these and switching things around with a red pen. Next, I snuck into the gym and taped my gunpowder zip-locks up against the bottom of Percy's assigned seat, which I knew because Quint always used alphabetical order for everything.

Was this dangerous? Probably. Definitely. It was a dark time for me, okay? You could say I was overreacting, but damn, I was just hitting puberty. The testosterone in my system was working overtime to egg me on.

When the time came, I was pretty nervous about it all. Pranks were never my thing, and I knew I'd get expelled if I got caught, but it was way too late to do anything about it by then. So, when my class went to line up and head over to the gym in single-file, I had my hand in my pocket, screwing with the box of matches I'd gotten from one of the upperclassmen.

My class was one of the last to make it in before the assembly started, so when I saw him, it was only the back of his head. If any part of me wanted to back out, it squashed right then and there. Just looking at the guy made me wanna throw a tantrum. My body moved, and I sat down right behind him, in between two other students who immediately turned to talk to the people next to each of them. The vice-principal started clearing his throat on the mic, about to start. No one saw me reach over and light the fuse under Percy's seat.

You know that feeling you get in your gut right as you hit the drop on a rollercoaster, and on top of that you suddenly don't know whether the thing they strapped on you is secure enough, and maybe you forgot to put your glasses away, or you realize that you're wearing sandals and they could fly off at any second? Yeah, I got that. Watching that fuse slowly shrink further and further into the bag of explosives, the full weight of the coming consequences slammed down on my shoulders. I sucked in a lungful of air, backing up into my seat like a cockroach had crawled through the floor between my shoes.

It started out slow, smoke sizzling out from under the seat. That was enough to get most people close by to notice that something was going on, and there was a lot of muttering, then a lot of shuffling as people tried to back away. Percy, now covered in smoke, sneezed. He was in the middle of saying something along the lines of 'what's cooking?' when his seat exploded into a rainbow lightshow that would've made any Disneyland employee proud.

My proximity to the blast zone was something I hadn't considered in my genius plan. I went deaf immediately, got covered in soot, all the smoke and bright lights blinded me. When everything was said and done, I ended up running around like a headless chicken, bumping into people and chairs, trying to run off to somewhere I could wash my face and get my bearings.

Slowly, the ringing in my ears went from 'fire alarm' level to 'class dismissed' level, and I could actually hear the blood pumping in my ears. I could also hear people screaming, and stuff falling and crashing, and the last few fireworks going off. I still couldn't see, and I didn't want to rub my eyes with hands that were probably caked with ash.

That problem was solved when the sprinklers went off, raining water down on the whole mess. It also made people freak out even more, and I could hear some of the faculty trying to organize students and parents, wanting to leave the gym in a dignified manner, but it was way too late for that. When the water washed away enough dirt from my face to let me see, I saw that the exit was now home to the biggest traffic jam of the century. Almost everyone was crowded around there, clawing at each other to get out, completely soaked, some of them covered in grime from all the smoke that still floated around in some places.

I made to go over and get out too. I mean, with all the chaos there was no way people would know it was all done by me if I went along with everyone.

But someone blocked my way. A student, at least a head taller than me, just as dirty as everyone else, but completely unbothered by it. I tried going around, but he held out his arm to stop me, and when I looked up to tell him to get out of the way, well…

Humans are pretty special, what with all our tech, and our ability to communicate with complex language, and all of that stuff I'm sure you've all heard from some motivational speaker or another. But, we're still animals at the end of the day, and every animal, no exceptions, has the same reaction to coming by a predator: you either stand your ground and fight, or run the hell away. Before all that, though, right when the adrenaline starts to flood into your system, you freeze.

And that's what happened to me. I froze. In that brief instant, I saw that this guy wasn't a guy at all. It was in the eyes. I'm sure you've seen it too. It's the kind of bloodthirst that can only come from the complete hatred of mankind. Eyes that wanna kill us and everyone we've ever known, right before piling us up in a mound and pissing on our graves.

No one knows exactly where monsters came from, but there are plenty of theories. Some people think that they were originally outcasts of society—murderers, cannibals, adulterers—and the Mist slowly warped their outsides to show their insides. Others think that some god created them one day, and maybe they went out of control. That's what a lot of the stories say, and maybe that's true for some of them. Me? I have a different theory.

Gods and heroes are supposed to embody the ideals of society. That's why we worship them. They're a goal, maybe not one we can ever reach, but one we consider worth striving for. But for there to be virtues that push us to our goals, there have to be vices that pull us from them. These vices, the flaws of humanity, our capacity for evil and malevolence, can be found inside every single person. There's a reason every demigod has a fatal flaw, and it doesn't have anything to do with us being half-divine. It's the half-mortal part. That's just what happens when you're human. Deep down, we all have that potential to sin, and it's something we run from. Desperately run from it. Because if we embrace it and let it lead us down that path…

Well, I guess I'm getting off topic.

If gods and heroes embody our ideals, then monsters embody our depravity. I don't know how, but the sick recesses of corruption in us were given shape and structure. It's a part of us that hates ourselves with all the enthusiasm you can imagine, and it's that hatred that stared me down then, loathing everything I was and could ever be, set on destroying me at any cost.

As you could guess, I chose the flight strategy in that particular encounter. Slowly, like any sudden twitch could get the student look-alike to stop the act and rip me to pieces, I backed away, my hand coming down the emergency knife I had strapped to my belt.

Then the monster did shed its costume, or it morphed out of it. Its form shifting and churning, the thing grew into a hideous whirlpool of black _stuff_ , the indoor rain from the sprinklers mixing up into the fluid cloud as its eyes kept staring, floating in the formless mass.

A _metamorphogos_ ; the shapeshifter. They're rare, so I wouldn't be surprised if none of you have run into one. They have this really unfair habit of turning into whatever they want, so it's easy for them to sneak into places without anyone noticing. Even demigods with years of experience have trouble spotting them in crowds—it's not like you can see their true forms through the Mist like usual—so it doesn't surprise me that it managed to sneak into Quint, especially when I wasn't exactly watching out for monsters. At the time, the one in front of me was turning into a giant wolf-beast that would make any hellhound jealous, with thick dark fur and sharp bones jutting from its thick flesh.

As I backed away, I bumped into someone else. I went to twist around, heart dropping into my gut, thinking there was another one behind me, but a hand grabbed my shoulder. At that moment, running away was clearly not gonna work, so my body switched over to combat mode even if I knew logically that there was no way I was getting out of that in one piece.

But right before I could reach around and stab whatever was behind me with my knife, I heard it speak up. It was a boy, and young, who said, and I quote:

"Looks like school… went out with a bang."

The truly horrible timing of what I quickly realized to be a pun was enough to stop me, and it's a good thing too, because if it didn't I would've killed Percy Jackson right then and there.

We were the only ones left in the gym at that point, everyone else having finally evacuated. Percy reached up to comb his black, wet hair out of his eyes. There were a pair of sunglasses hung from the collar of his shirt, which was unbuttoned at the top, against school code. He eventually noticed the abomination ready to eat us alive.

"Shit, that's a big dog. Is it growing _tusks_?" he said, pointing at it over my shoulder. It was quite the shock to find out that Percy could see through the Mist, especially in that situation. I had thought that I was the only demigod in the whole school, after all. "Was that there the whole time, and I didn't _see_ it? Wait…" he looked down at the knife in my hand. "… I see you're in the middle of something."

It was all said with subdued interest, like he was just walking through the park and noticed an especially nice flower or tree.

I don't know what I would've said. Maybe call him crazy. Maybe I would've actually told him that my knife was clearly the last thing to worry about. But I couldn't say any of that, because just then the shapeshifter-turned-huge-murder-dog rushed at us, transformation complete and patience worn thin.

Instead, I said, "Run!" then followed my own advice and jumped over some upturned chairs, trying to get some distance from the monster.

Percy unfortunately didn't follow my advice, instead staring at me as I ran off. "Why? It's probably just a—"

The monster slammed its tusk into him with the force of a wrecking ball, throwing him several feet away into a row of chairs, where he landed in a crash of hard plastic and wet wood.

I didn't have time to worry about him, though, because the _metamorphogos_ began changing shape again, keeping the whole monster-wolf aesthetic but turning bipedal, easily following me through the mess of chairs with long spindly legs.

I'd always thought that I'd be ready for a moment like that. It's what I was training for, after all. But you can understand why I was a bit scared with a giant, seething monster-wolf thing backing me into a wall. To be honest, I was shaking more than a laundry machine, and that actually might've saved me, because seeing me terrified and wet, with only a small knife between us, the _metamorphogos_ stopped and went to the effort of shifting its savage snout into a slightly less savage jawline.

It was real ugly now. Furred and vicious like a wolf, tusked like a boar, but with the body and face of a man. Its arms grew huge, looking strong enough to crush me like an empty soda can. It laughed, and the sound that came out of its throat was beyond guttural, almost metallic, like rusty clockwork. Seeing me cower against the wall, barely holding my knife up, it spoke, contempt dripping out from its voice:

"If you knew how hard you were to find, you'd be laughing too! It took me _days_ to track you down in this ridiculous school! And all for some pathetic noddle-armed brat! You better pray to whatever god bred you that the taste is worth it. In fact, we'll make sure it is! We'll cut you up real nice, throw in some seasoning, some eggs, some custard… make a quiche or something!"

I didn't want to be a quiche, and not just because I wasn't very partial to French cuisine. Still, the worst part about the whole situation was that it had said 'we' at the end there. This wasn't all that surprising, but it _was_ a worst-case scenario. See, _metamorphogos_ are usually loners, since they can sneak into anywhere and take all their meals for themselves. The real dangerous ones, though, usually grouped up with some other monsters.

It was in a monster gang, like it wasn't bad enough on its own. If I ever find out who gave monsters the idea to group up, I swear, I'll make them eat out a pigsty for the rest of their life. _Metamorphogos_ were an especially lucky get for any gang that could convince one to join up. They were like the ultimate recon team all by themselves.

The stress of whatever was out there waiting for some kind of signal just added to my stress. As the monster got closer and closer, blocking off any escape, all that adrenaline and tension building up inside me burst out, and my body moved on its own, knife lunging forward and driving itself into the beast's thigh.

It didn't do much, just a grunt from the monster, but it was enough to distract it. I dived under its legs, sliding a bit from the water as I fell on the floor. Getting to my feet, I ran as fast as I could to the gym bleachers, feeling the hair on the back of my head ruffle as one of the gnarly claws almost decapitated me.

The bleachers in the gym were automatic ones, meaning they could be opened and closed with the flip of a switch, sliding in against the wall like a set of drawers. I'd always seen my classmates messing around inside them whenever they were open, and getting in trouble because of how dangerous it was. Can you imagine being under there while the bleachers closed?

Well, I could. I flipped the switch on my way past it and ran right in under the bleachers, weaving my way up and around the metal supports even as they grinded against each other, contracting. I took a peek behind me and saw that the monster had followed me in, its form now smaller to fit into the tighter space.

This was one of my more on-the-spot plans, but I didn't know what else to do. My knife was stuck in its thigh, and _I_ didn't have any crazy powers. Us normier demigods have to live with what we get, even if in my case it's not much more than a slightly bigger brain and a proclivity for improvisation.

Seeing the walls literally closing in on me, I started to panic, but all I could do was keep running. I felt the monster at my back, getting near, not with the supports as much as I thought it would. With only a few feet left to go, and the bleachers almost squishing me behind them until some poor janitor found whatever was left of me later down the road, I threw myself forward, diving to a roll and landing on my back, just in time. I watched the monster, inches from following after me, getting enclosed by the bleachers as they thudded to a stop against the gym wall.

I sat there, completely soaked. Then, I remembered to breathe.

It wasn't the first monster I'd killed, but it was the first one I'd beat on my own, completely unsupervised. A thrill came over me, and I couldn't stop myself from smiling. I just kept thinking, _thank god I did it. Thank god._

The exhaustion came when the adrenaline rush left.. Laying spread-eagle on my back, I sighed, relaxing even as drops of water kept raining down on me from the ceiling.

You should know how big of a mistake that was. Not a second later, I heard a thud. Then another. It didn't take long for a hole to get blown apart in the bleachers, and from it, out stepped the _metamorphogos_ , now big enough to eat me whole. It had taken the shape of a giant, I guess just to get it all over with.

"That was cute," it said. Searching around its mouth with its tongue, it then spat out my knife, and it clanged to a stop next to me.

It apparently wasn't feeling very talkative, because next thing I knew it was reaching for me with hands as big as I was tall. I would've screamed, but my voice caught in my throat, and I could only watch scared out of my mind from the floor as its fingers got closer and closer.

Then, just as the monster was about to crush me with its meaty palm, I felt something like a cannonball slam into me. I got thrown far, definitely bruised, right as the big hand closed where I had just been lying. The _metamorphogos_ stood there, staring dumbly at his empty hand, opening and closing it just to make sure. And then, from behind the monster, we heard a voice:

"Look at you, all big-like."

Standing in the middle of what used to be a row of seats before the monster had barged through them, water falling all around him, Percy stood, hand in his pocket, the other combing his drenched hair back. His eyes met mine, and he nudged his head. "Hey… whoever you are… You might wanna get outta the way now."

I didn't know what he was planning, but with the monster's attention off me, I wasn't complaining. I scrambled away, and the _metamorphogos_ turned to look at Percy, ignoring me for the moment. It sniffed, then made a face like swallowing expired milk.

"I was wondering where that smell was coming from," it said. "You should take a bath, runt. Your stench was bad enough to cover for _his_ ," it was referring to me, then. "I was actually about to give up the hunt, but then, well," it laughed, gesturing to the otherwise empty gym, "looks like luck was on my side, getting us all alone together. Much easier to pick out smells with less people around."

Percy narrowed his eyes, whole body tensing up. "I don't know what you're talking about…" He lifted his arm and sniffed his armpit, then pointed a stern finger at the monster, looking offended. "I shower twice a day!"

The _metamorphogos_ laughed again, turning back to me. "A funny one, eh? Well, run along then. This has nothing to do with you."

This single line would lead a long and arduous investigation on my part, because at the time it didn't seem to make any sense. Percy could see through the Mist, and he clearly had some sort of godly power, if my throbbing ribs meant anything. How could he _not_ be involved, I thought. Right at that moment, however, I had bigger things to worry about, namely the giant look-alike salivating over me.

Percy kept staring the monster down. Then, and I couldn't believe it, he grabbed the sunglasses hanging from the collar of his shirt, snapped them open, and slid them on. "Thanks, but no thanks. I thought you were a hologram or something, but then you went and broke my arm. It hurts a lot, just so you know."

The _metamorphogos_ turned to him again. "I'm warning you here, brat. Get out while you still can, before I change my mind."

"Huh? Am I supposed to be scared or something?" Percy raised a hand, the other still in his pocket. "Whatever. Since you're trying to kill us and everything, I guess I should just kick your ass."

Hearing this, the _metamorphogos_ began changing for the worse. Muscles bulged, fangs grew out of its chapped lips, dripping poison which melted through the floorboards on impact. A tail sprouted from the small of its back, spiked and topped like a scorpion's. "As always, you children can be too full of yourselves. Unfortunately for you, I'm not just any monster! We _metamorphogos_ are the ultimate predators! Our strength is only limited by our imaginations! Our malleable bodies can take just about anything! I'll crush your bones into powder! I'll rip your limbs tendon by tendon! I'll—"

The monster's head was thrown back, like it had gotten sucker punched right on the jaw. The sound of something smacking against flesh over and over filled the auditorium, and the _metamorphogos_ was thrown back against the wall several feet away. Eyes wide in pain, a gurgling scream ripped out of its mouth as something hit it again and again like machinegun fire, all over its giant body.

Holes were getting pounded into its skin, a force crashing into the monster, a barrage of invisible strikes. The sound bled into the sprinkler water hitting the floor, and it almost felt like I was in the middle of a storm, my ears assaulted with the patter of rain-waves.

With one final hit, the wall gave in, splintering cracks forming, and the monster exploded into the hole, left sitting in its own personal inlet. Its eyes were glazed over, and though it still breathed, it didn't so much as twitch.

Percy let out a long breath, putting his arm down. Looking up, he sucked in hard, nostrils flared. He then calmly walked over to one of the foldable chairs and, scream ripping from his throat, kicked it with all his might, sending it up into the air a good bit before it crashed back down. His hand reached around to hold his other arm, the one that was apparently broken, screaming _shit, shiiiiit!_ It's a wonder how he managed all that without letting out all that pain before.

And then the sprinklers finally turned off.

I had watched the whole thing both amazed and confused. I've seen my fair share powers, as I'm sure you all have, but at the time that was the first one I'd seen that was so crazy strong. Now it really does seem like just a drop in the bucket of what people can do, but for someone like me, twelve years old and having gone to camp only twice? For someone who hadn't gone on any sort of quest, or met any god in person, or fought any really freaky monster, or even seen another demigod do more than little party tricks?

The whole show had blown past all my expectations, bringing back all sorts of stories that I'd thought were just exaggerations. Warriors like Achilles and Ajax going off to take down hundreds of Trojans singlehanded. Perseus turning the giant sea serpent Cetus into stone with Medusa's head. Hercules lifting entire mountains.

Even after two summers hanging out with satyrs and harpies and pegasi, training with other demigods, food magically appearing on our plates and automaton fights getting bet on, I had always been skeptical. No way was the crazier stuff we'd been told true, I thought. I was just too out there. Now? After seeing _that_? None of those things seemed all that far-fetched anymore.

I was so lost in my amazement that I didn't notice Percy getting closer until he stood just over me. He had his hand out. "Can you not stand or something? I'll drag you out, but don't blame me if you get more dirty than you already are."

That awe that had filled me earlier then turned into cold, hard pragmatism. I thought something like: _there's probably more monsters out there waiting for me, and it's clear now that the small knife I have won't be enough to let me handle much more than a hellhound or something._ Percy, though? He could handle things just fine.

I took his hand, ignoring my drenched clothes and the squish of my shoes.

"What was all that about anyway?" He flinched, and I realized that he wasn't kidding about that broken arm. It wasn't ideal, but he was still my best shot out of there, so it was up to me to make sure he was in tip-top shape to keep me alive.

I grabbed his shoulder, the healthy one, and looked at him as seriously as I could manage. "There's more of them. Come with me and I'll tell you everything. And I'll fix that arm up too."

It didn't take much convincing. He shrugged. "Sounds good to me. I've been waiting for something like this to happen, so it's about time!"

Whatever that meant was the least of my problems. Relieved, I recognized how one-sided our rivalry really had been. Thinking about it, I couldn't bring up much of the resentment I'd felt, at least not right after he'd saved my life. That wouldn't last forever, but for the moment? I knew where my priorities were.

So even though I already knew some of it, I still asked. "What's your name?"

"Percy. Percy Jackson." He was proud to say it.

"Call me Malcolm. I'm gonna blow your world wide open, Percy."

Even with the pain he was in, he grinned. "Can't wait!"

And he really couldn't. I'm sure he'd laugh now, if I asked him why he'd been so excited. He'd probably call himself an idiot, too, and I wouldn't disagree. We were both really dumb back then.

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	2. Book 1, Act 2

So, where was I again? Oh, right, right.

The first thing we did was use my belt and tie to make a makeshift sling for Percy. He didn't have either, what a rebel. Just wrapped the tie around his arm and then tied the belt over his shoulder—pretty useful stuff to be writing down, actually. Got a pen? Ah, never mind.

That done, I pulled a drachma out of my pocket and tossed it at some of the mist that had built up from the sprinklers earlier. I said the incantation, and man, the look on Percy's face when Beckendorf popped up next to us through the Mist was priceless. Beck was surprised too, actually. Makes sense; not every day two kids suddenly appear next to you in your car.

Yeah, _that_ Beckendorf. We're pals.

I guess you could say he's intimidating. I mean, he's gigantic, and his face is constantly set in this rock-solid scowl like he's always smelling something fishy, but trust me, he's actually a real friendly guy. Since Quint was on the way from his house to camp, I'd asked him to stop by and carpool, to make it easier on my parents. My family wasn't exactly made of money or anything.

I had to stop Percy from waving a hand through the Iris-message while I explained what was going on. Luckily, Beck was almost to Quint, just fifteen or so minutes away. I told him, yeah, we can wait. The truth is that I wasn't sure if we could make it even five minutes, but I decided to keep that to myself.

That done, I finally let Percy do whatever he wanted, and naturally he dissolved the message immediately. He turned to me with a look that said something like 'do it again,' so I grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him out the gym, heading for my room to get him some first aid for his arm. We ran, because every cell in my body was screaming at me that we weren't safe, and I was just waiting for a monster to pop out and eat us around any corner.

On the way, I finally explained to Percy what was going on. You know the spiel. Myths are real, gods are real, you're probably the result of one of them getting it on with your mom or dad or whoever it is, there's a camp for people like us, etcetera, etcetera. I'm sure I don't have to go over this with you.

"Oh, I get it now," Percy said, a hand rubbing his chin like some sort of detective. I wonder what crime show he got _that_ from. "You're just crazy. Now it all makes sense."

I remember almost tripping halfway up the dormitory stairs. "Huh?! I'm not crazy!"

"Man, you're even in denial. It's worse than I thought."

At that point I was starting to think that I could have some basis for hating his guts after all. "How can you not believe me? Don't you remember the giant shapeshifting monster that almost killed us just now?"

"Well yeah, but one monster freak doesn't prove a whole bunch of gods and mythical stuff." We were darting past rooms now, and I was trying to get enough of a handle on my incredulity to still pay attention at all the room numbers. "I mean, look at me. _I've_ got kickass superpowers, but you don't see a whole legion of people flying around and stopping bank robbers or whatever."

I didn't respond, partly because I couldn't really argue with that, but mostly because we'd finally reached my room. I shoved him in there, locked the door behind us, and then to top it off, dragged the chair in my desk over to prop against the handle. Then, I went over to my drawer, reaching into the top box to look for my emergency ambrosia.

Percy looked around my room while I searched. It wasn't the neatest place in the world, I'll admit that. From what I remember, my desk had books stacked and piled on top of each other, probably high enough to reach my nose. There was a whole mound of clothes next to my bed—which probably wasn't made—all clean, as I'd thought to do my laundry the day before. The walls were blank; just white brick. My roommate had already taken down all his posters, and I just never bothered to put any up anyway. The window was big enough to cover almost the whole wall, and it had the blinds drawn like usual.

Looking back, maybe it _would've_ been nice to have a painting or something to hang on the wall. It would've made the place feel more like home and less like a cave refuge where I happened to put my stuff.

Nothing of mine was packed, as opposed to my roommate who had all his bags and suitcases lined up neatly against the wall. I'd planned on having Beck help me put everything away, something that didn't end up happening for obvious reasons. Damn, I _still_ miss that memory foam pillow!

"What did you do to that monster anyway?" I asked, actually curious, but also kind of embarrassed by the mess and wanting to take attention away from it. "I've never seen any demigod do that before."

Percy hummed, then pointed at one of the books on my desk. Slowly, it rose into the air, and drifted into his hand. He held it up all proud. "I can move things with my mind. So, for that guy…" he threw the book into the air and pointed at it again. This time, it rocketed back into the wall, like it had gotten hit by a baseball bat. "Mind bullets! It's kinda like punching someone from really far away. Except, I only have two fists, and my mind has, like, infinity fists, so…"

That was the first and only explanation I ever got from Percy about his powers. It drives me insane to this day, because I know that he's found out more about it, and he won't tell me just because he thinks it's funny. He actually said that, too! God, what an asshole.

But yeah, telekinesis. I've thought about it, and I don't think it's as simple as just pointing at something and thinking it into flying up. He said it's like 'punching someone from really far away,' so I think there's some kind of energy that comes out of Percy, like he can pull out an invisible arm that reaches out and does whatever he wants it to do. I don't know, that's the closest _I've_ ever gotten to figuring it out.

Anyway…

"That's great, Percy, but try not to break my stuff next time." I found the ambrosia soon enough, and threw him the little box. It stopped midair and floated down to him. "Eat those," I said, then I went over to make sure that the book he'd slammed against the wall wasn't too dented. Of course, it was.

"What are these?" he asked, looking over the small plastic container. Judging by his face, he'd probably never seen glowing food before. "Tic Tacs?"

"They're ambrosia pills. Basically, they'll fix you up, but be careful not to—"

He popped the lid open and downed half the damn thing.

"…. Eat too many…"

I'm assuming you know how stupid this looked to me. Two of those things is enough to get most people up and ready, and four could probably close up whatever holes you manage to get stabbed or shot into you. Most people usually settle for working condition rather than full blown regeneration, though, seeing as taking even three is right on the borderline of horrible agony in your internal organs.

Percy? He munched on those pills like they were candy. "These are pretty good! Tastes like blueberries!" He was about to eat the rest of them when I stepped in and snatched them out of his hand. "Hey! I was just getting into it!"

I shoved the box in my pocket. "Don't 'hey' me! Ambrosia's the food of the gods, you idiot! Eat too many and you'll liquidate your insides!"

"My insides don't _feel_ liquidated! Actually…" He smiled. Slowly, he brought his broken arm out of the cradle he'd had it in, flexing his fingers in front of his face. It worked as good as new, if probably a little numb like anything else healed the same way. "Dude, this is awesome! What kinda vitamins are in those?"

I eyed him for a bit, trying to see any sign of pain, maybe some veins lighting up as the blood in them superheated into lava, but none of that happened. In fact, Percy looked more energized than ever. Better than perfect.

I remembered the _metamorphogos_ saying that Percy didn't have anything to do with what was going on. How his scent was different from mine somehow, enough to mask mine. His powers weren't like anything I'd ever seen, and more than that, they were already way strong as young as he was. Demigod powers were supposed to grow with age—at least, that's what I'd been told. Something didn't add up.

I would've put more thought into it then, but at that moment a giant, scaly bird foot broke in through the window, ripping through the blinds with long claws, and wrapping its talons around Percy. It then drew back, taking him with it, glass shards getting all over the floor. I got fined pretty bad for that.

But that's when I truly learned the demigod golden rule: never forget that you're never safe. I ran to the window and stuck my head out to see a _koiníthea_ flapping away, Percy struggling in its grip.

Even now, I still have no idea how anyone managed to domesticate one of those. _Koinítheas_ are… Well shit, you've seen the one that's out _there_. We're talking a good bus-length wingspan here, and that's on average. The worst part about them isn't even that they're big enough to go fishing for sea serpents on a good day; it's that their feathers let them blend in with any kind of cloud. They're reflective or something, I don't know. Imagine walking down the sidewalk, minding your own business, when all of a sudden, _whoosh!_ You're a good five hundred feet in the air like _that_ , and your only options are to get dropped to your death or get eaten when it finally takes you to its nest.

This particular one was currently a solid grey, since that's the color that covered the sky. Yeah, it was _that_ summer, so we hadn't seen a day without a sheet of storm clouds covering everything up in a week at least. I didn't even think about it at the time, funny enough, but there were bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

Anyway, the _koiníthea_ screeched at me, and only then did I notice the thing on its back. There was a freaking giant riding on the bird. It was something so ridiculous that I didn't believe it at first, and I was so stupefied I couldn't even be all that scared.

The giant wore what I guess passed off as armor to him: pads on his knees and elbows, a biking helmet, and a bulletproof vest. Like someone pretending to be in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The worst part about it was the lance he held over his shoulder, full of gnarled points all along the sides. Next to him, there was a _keres_. The only thing that darker than her wings was the look on her face, an angel of death come to grind our bones to dust.

The giant looked at me, chin raised. "Demigod! I am Sir Wulfaine Manslayer! I comst to exact vengeance upon thee for thy crimes! Release thyself to our justice, else thy companion suffer the consequences!"

Yeah, that's right, it's the god damn Manslayer Band! That's the first time I ever met them, so it took me a sec to figure out exactly what was going on behind their personal brand of ridiculousness. Seeing my face, the _keres_ decided to give her two cents.

"Sir knight, that boy surely means to run, just look at him! I say we kill him now, and then this one too," she floated down to Percy, salivating while he struggled against the _koiníthea's_ grip. "Better yet, we'll tie them up and drag them through the gravel path! Or hang them upside down over a pot of boiling water! Or leave them skewered through a metal pipe on the highest building we can find and wait for them to get toasted by the coming lightning! Yes, yes!" She had a faraway look to her as she thought through our many gruesome deaths, and her tongue hung out of her mouth like a dog in heat… Ugh. I guess that's one thing about the more humanoid monsters: she'd be really hot if she wasn't so terrifying.

Wulfaine thought so too, apparently. "Tarry, my sweet Vendruvia, and settle thy malignant aims!" he said. "Such exorbitant medicines are beneath thy personage—though perhaps not thy dispositions—notwithstanding the disgrace that wouldst befall our commingled esteem, as I have sought to impart on thee hitherto."

… Or it went something like that, at least. Wulfaine isn't exactly an easy one to imitate, but hey, I'm doing my best here.

Percy had given up by now, happy to wait things out in his talon cage. He might've found a way to break out with his powers, but even then, he was smart enough to consider the four-story drop that he couldn't survive if he did.

But this was a seriously dangerous situation I was in. Two flying monsters way above my pay-grade, a crazy chivalry giant, and the only guy that could've helped me out of it being used as a hostage. Thinking on that, it gave me an idea.

I looked up at the giant and, gulping down the part of me that wanted to run and run fast, shouted: "Hey, this shapeshifter's part of your group, isn't he?!"

That got their attention. "Correct thou art, demigod!" Wulfaine said. "In truth, I was just this moment thinking on mine own frightful compeer! If thou knowest his whereabouts, I hereby ask of thee to release such information!"

I took my knife and pointed it at the empty space next to me, somewhere hidden by the wall. All they could see was me threatening something out of their sight, and I forced myself to smile, trying to sound on top of things. "He's right here, unconscious! Let the kid go and I won't kill him!"

We all ignored Percy's ' _You're_ a kid!' to begin the standoff. Luckily for me, Wulfaine was on the gullible side, because he was quick to turn to Vendruvia with worry written all over him.

"Well, we seemst to have stumbled onto quite the pickle, my lady. Our dear and loyal friend Randal is in arduous danger!"

Vendruvia wasn't as easy to trick. "Sir knight, this is clearly a lie! Don't be bought by something so obvious!"

Wulfaine hummed, looking to me. "Art thou lying, boy?"

"Uh… no?"

"My lady, he's positively serious!"

While Vendruvia palmed her face, Percy looked up at the giant like for the first time. "Oh, you're just an idiot!" he said, solving the puzzle of the century.

The _keres_ shook her head. "You won't fool us, boy! I'll gut you and spread your entrails all over my body! I'll bathe in your blood! If you really had Randal there, you'd show us!"

I glared back at her. "You ready to bet on that?" I asked. "Even if there's a one-percent chance that he's here? I'm not screwing around!"

"Don't pretend like you're in control here! You could have a one percent chance of having Randal there or, even a ninety-nine percent chance, but _we_ have a hundred percent _certainty_ that _your_ friend is right here and about to get eviscerated by my meticulously manicured claws!"

"Maybe, but I don't give a crap about that guy! I was only using him because he's strong! You guys care about your friend enough to not just immediately kill _your_ hostage on the incredibly _minuscule_ chance that I actually _do_ have mine!"

"Ooooh, he's got you guys there," Percy said.

Wulfaine nodded, combing through his beard. "I fear we cannot altercate 'gainst such reasoning."

Vendruvia, eyes aflame, turned to the two. "Of course we can! Will you two take this seriously?!"

I'd managed to get under their skin a bit. They were hesitating now, and that was all I needed. After all, Beck was on his way, and if I could stall long enough for him to get us out of this mess then that would be a job well done.

But since demigods can never have it easy, it was at that moment that Randal, in the shape of a bull, crashed through the door, blowing it straight off its hinges. We all stared at him, everyone trying to process what it meant for him to be there, until finally, Percy's scream cut through the standstill.

"Malcolm! Throw it at me!"

Unfocused as I was, I followed along with it almost immediately. It was like my subconscious had already decided that there wasn't anything else I could do to get out of that mess. All those hours of practice kicked in, and I flipped the knife in my hand, catching it by the blade with my fingers and throwing it at Percy.

Eyes wide and pupils dilated, he followed the spinning blade like a snake ready to jump for the kill. The knife was aiming to itself into the _koiníthea's_ talons, just inches away, when its trajectory suddenly turned, shooting up to the bird's left wing.

You know when you're cutting a piece of paper with a pair of scissors, and if they're sharp enough you can slice right through without even putting any effort into actually closing the blades? Yeah, that's what it reminded me of when my knife cut across that giant wing like a buzz saw, clipping off all its primary feathers.

The bird started struggling, one of its wings now dead weight. Wulfaine glued himself against the its back, dropping his lance to get a better grip on the reins.

"Herncrowen! Hold fast, my noble steed!"

The _koiníthea_ screeched, the sound bouncing off the walls as it started losing altitude. It flapped desperately, but it was no use. It fell, taking the knight-giant and Percy with it, and they crash landed onto the courtyard below.

Watching all this, Vendruvia and bull-Randal acted at once, both charging at me, one from the air and the other from behind. All my other options gone, disarmed and surrounded, I did the only logical thing you could expect anyone to do in that situation. I jumped out the window.

What, was I supposed to let myself get skewered from the back, or get my head chopped off by that angel-lady's claws? I figured that if I was gonna die anyway, I might as well be the one to pull the trigger. You'd do the same thing.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the crunch of bones as I landed feet-first onto the stone path below. I prayed to my mom; a little angry, not gonna lie, but I can't say I didn't find some peace with it, midair and hurtling to my death. My life hadn't been long, but it wasn't all that bad, I thought. I'd made some friends, had some fun, and you know, getting killed fighting a shapeshifter and a crazy demon lady wasn't the worst way to go.

Since I'm here talking to you, obviously the self-reflection didn't last very long. Next thing I knew, it felt like someone caught me. And when I say someone caught me, I don't mean that I landed on someone's open arms or something; I mean that my entire body simultaneously felt like it'd been caught from every direction. I opened my eyes, and a dozen feet down, arms held out at me, Percy used his powers to float me down as gently as he could. His version of gentle isn't like everyone else's, and I ended up with my face against the ground, but man, it was way better than the same thing at terminal velocity.

He patted me on the back as I struggled to my feet. "That was hilarious!" he said. "Your face was all like, 'you're not taking me alive!' You really _are_ crazy, huh? Hahahaha!"

I made to respond, but at that moment, bull-Randal ended up crashing down right next to us, tearing up the stone and digging himself a nice little crater. He was left stuck on the ground tail-up. I guess he didn't have the time to change his mind about charging headfirst at someone right in front of an open window.

Vendruvia swooped down to where Wulfaine and Herncrowen were a good distance away. They looked over their pet, and when they decided it wasn't hurt too bad, their eyes came back to us. Nearby, Randal began shifting again, his form covered in the same black matter as before.

I guess I should set the scene a bit. Quint's a pretty big school; something like ten thousand students, and all of them live on campus. The space you need for dormitories is probably equal to or even greater than the space you need for everything else. They got around this by making the whole place a giant, castle-like, donut-shaped building, with all the actual school stuff—classrooms, the gym, the auditorium—taking up one half of it while the dorms made up the other half. We had sports fields and courts outside of that structure, you know, for football and tennis and all that, but generally everything was kept inside that circle. Who knows, maybe they've expanded since I went?

It's not like Quint was a _perfect_ circle. There were roads and pathways kind of snaking their way through the outside shell and into the middle, and some parts of the buildings were a bit taller than others, but generally, there was a reason people sometimes called it a fortress.

We were in the courtyard that stretched all throughout the middle of the circle; rings of grass and expertly trimmed bushes, with exotic flowers all over that made you feel like you were looking through a kaleidoscope if you saw the whole thing from up top. I remember we called it the Glass Garden, since we weren't allowed to step on the grass. And man, believe me when I tell you that we were terrified of stepping one foot off the stone path, because the Saturday detentions they gave out were _gruesome_.

I heard that they didn't even _have_ those paths a few years before I started there. The only way to get to the other side of school without them would be to actually walk all the way around, and let me tell you, that walk is no joke. I'm talking about something the size of a baseball stadium here. Definitely not something you'd wanna do in between periods.

Either way, I guess you could say we were breaking the rules at the time. Herncrowen hadn't had a soft landing, and Wulfaine's lance had landed on what used to be a dragon-shaped hedge.

Anyway, Randal changing was as good a sign as any to cut and run. I grabbed Percy's shoulder and tried to pull him along, but he only adjusted his sunglasses, staring the monsters down. "Alright, at this point, I guess you might be onto something with that whole Greek myth thing," he said. "I'll check out that camp you were talking about, but first…" He shook me off. "Lemme deal with these weirdos."

Now, while I was more than happy to let someone else do the heavy-lifting, I had to ask, "Is this really necessary? Let's just get outta here before they regroup."

Knowing everything I know now, he probably thought it was _more_ than necessary. You see, while he knew how to use his powers, and had come across his own share of strangeness before all this ever happened, I don't think he'd ever had to really go to town with them before that very day. I guess it's something he'd been craving for a long time. Anyone with a souped up car or a new electric guitar, or hell, even a nice stash of big fireworks would know that feeling too. One day, they'd find someone to race, or an amp to plug in, or a holiday to celebrate.

And right then, Percy's holiday was right in front of him, in the form of four very crushable monsters.

Wulfaine looked at Percy, the eyes under his helmet heavy and solemn. "I taketh no joy at giving battle to one such as thyself, but I can admire thy loyalty to thine comrade," he said. "Howbeit, I've taken on the holy duty of exterminating all demigods, for the good of mine own. If thou refuseth to stand down, I fear I must take arms against thee."

Percy just stretched his arms above his head. "It's cool, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do and all that."

Speaking of which, Randal was still changing his form, though it was thinner than anything I'd seen him change into up until then. As he began to complete his transformation, Wulfaine threw his arms up in the air, hands spread, and he chanted:

"Prepare thyselves!"

"Or!" Vendruvia, who'd been flying circles over us, spun into place onto the knight-giant's shoulders, wings extended, the talons of her avian feet stabbing into his skin. "Submit yourselves!"

"To walk under the light!"

"To fight against our plight!"

"To expand the realms of beast and terror!"

"To revenge ourselves on human error!"

Why are you laughing? Of course this actually happened! These guys aren't exactly normal; I'd think that's pretty obvious by now. As for their little combo catch-phrase, it was very well choreographed, I have say, even if it didn't have much pizzazz early on. They got better at it later. So, as I was saying:

"Our holy order will slay thee mortal spawn!"

"If might makes right, we'll be sure to show our brawn!"

Randal's figure jumped high into the air, plummeting directly into Wulfaine's hands. He'd transformed into a long, two handed monster of a sword that only spoke of bloody evil, its hilt formed out of flesh and fur and meat, and its blade made of a dark steel that looked like stygian iron. A single, piercing eye rolled along, in its cross guard.

Percy, of course, was eating it up. Stars in his eyes and everything. I guess that'd make him their first ever fanboy.

"Now," Wulfaine said, and I couldn't help but feel something strange in my stomach when he looked at us, like I'd gotten into one of those pirate ship rides and the buzz had spread from my abdomen to my entire body, lighting up all my nerves and pumping blood through my veins twice as fast as was reasonably healthy. It was only later that I realized that's the adrenaline-fueled state you get in when you think you're gonna die. "What say you we have ourselves a duel?"

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	3. Book 1, Act 3

Ever fought a _keres_? Well, when I say that they're angels of death, I'm saying it very literally. Their usual hangout spot is right over a battlefield, looking around for anyone too wounded or weak to stop them from feasting on their intestines. It's pretty gruesome, all things considered.

That doesn't come close to what can actually happen to you if you ever come across one, though. See, I guess since they're so used to seeing blood and death and all, they've taken a liking to projecting that onto anyone who isn't injured enough for their liking. Meaning, that the fear of mortality I found myself suddenly drowned in didn't just come from my own pathetic self, but from Vendruvia.

How do I explain this…

At some point in history, humans discovered the future. Pretty crazy, I know. But now that we could think about things like "tomorrow" and "next year" and even "later than that" we had all sorts of things to worry about that had nothing to do with how hungry we were at the moment, or if we were cold, or if we were getting chased around by lions or whatever it was that tried to kill us back then. Now things were about if we'd have enough food to not be hungry _later_. How we could go kill those lions _in advance_. And it was really important for us to get things done for later, because if we didn't, we'd die.

And that's all we could think about from then on. I'm gonna die. My family's gonna die. My friends are gonna die. We're all gonna get sick and hungry and old, and we're all gonna see each other get sick and hungry and old. Even worse, we'll see everyone else die from that until it eventually happens to us. Gods, just thinking about it can be enough to freak you the hell out, right? Well, imagine _that_ times a hundred, and that's basically the kind of self-consciousness a _keres'_ aura can give you. It sucks.

So why am I telling you about all this? Well, it's because when Wulfaine rushed at us, sword-Randal swinging, and me too hung up on that kind of thinking to do anything about it, Percy brought his arm up, and my knife flew out of a bush and threw itself between him and the sharp thing coming to tear us in half.

The hit was strong enough to send Percy skidding back into me, and we both fell, rolling and sliding a few dozen feet. He rolled onto a kneel, all scraped up, my knife still in the air in front of him. As for me? Getting bodied was enough to knock me out of my funk, luckily. Everything I talked about was still in the back of my head, where it always was, but now my brain had decided that the present danger was more important than whatever could happen to me after.

Now that's some good advice right there. You were taking notes, right? Write that down.

The monsters were pretty surprised by what happened, Vendruvia most of all. She narrowed her eyes, dark wings curling behind her. "What's this? You should be frozen in terrified anxiety! Why aren't you frozen in terrified anxiety right now?!"

Percy stood and stuck a finger in his nose. "Huh?"

She got that face, like she was talking to a foreigner who didn't know the local language. Annoyed, but also trying to understand how the person in front of her was capable of getting around by himself. "Incoming doom? The inevitability of death? Any of that ring a bell?"

"Oh, all that?" Percy flicked a booger off to the side. To this day, it's the most dismissive way I've ever seen someone address an existential crisis. "Yeah, that was weird."

It's nostalgic. Vendruvia's eyes glazed over, Wulfaine's too, and their jaws thrust out a bit forward, like they'd been planning to grind their teeth but forgot to close their mouths. It was the perfect mix of mild irritation mixed with complete disbelief that I got used to seeing from people who tried to understand that guy.

Wulfaine was the first to snap out of it. He shut his eyes, eyebrows drawn together. "For true, this is a fearsome opponent."

That snapped Vendruvia out of it too. She slapped the top of the knight-giant's head. "Get yourself together, sir knight! This is just the first time we've come across someone too stupid to have my powers work on him! He's still just a kid; use that brute strength of yours and kill him already!"

"As my lady says!" Wulfaine threw himself forward, running at us way faster than you'd expect from a giant. "Have at thee!"

"Okay!" Percy actually went ahead and dashed on too, ready to match a damn giant head-to-head with what you could consider a floating toothpick, relatively speaking. I didn't even have time to remind Percy that he didn't have to get in close to fight considering what his power was, but knowing him, he probably would've ignored me and gone ahead anyway.

Their blades clashed, with Percy swinging his arm, my knife following along in the air. But Wulfaine was a giant, so it took less than a second for his sword to overpower the small thing. It got sent flying like a homerun ball, crashing into the side of the building all the way across the courtyard and falling into some bushes.

Percy had to have been expecting that, because he didn't waste a second before he jumped high enough to completely avoid Wulfaine's follow-up swing. Now eye-level with Vendruvia herself, Percy took the time to blow her a raspberry before he cocked his fist back and socked her right on the jaw.

If you've ever gotten punched in the face, you'd know that what followed wasn't exactly a good time for her. And yeah, we're all superhuman and everything, but still, it hurts like a _bitch_ , and considering who it was that hit her, it shouldn't come as a surprise that she got completely laid out just like that. Her talons still stuck to Wulfaine's shoulders, she hung limp behind him, like a lumpy, feathery cape.

Percy didn't let that be the end of it. Twisting from his punch, he lay his hands on Wulfaine's helmet and pulled off a handstand. But whatever he was about to do next was interrupted by the giant forearm that knocked him off, and he flipped through the air for a bit until he skidded through the ground, leaving a nice, long trail of uprooted grass.

He held his gut like he had a bad stomachache. Which, you know, not bad for getting hit by an arm that was as big as your whole body. It sure would've straight up killed _me_.

Anyway, he seemed to be doing alright for a twelve-year-old in the middle of a fight to the death, so I turned my attention to more important things. Namely, where the hell was Beckendorf with our getaway car? It'd been fifteen minutes for sure. Then I remembered where we were, and the fact that most students were probably lined up at the front of the school, and that there was likely a long line of cars between us and him. It's not like he knew the layout of the place, or even where we were. With Vendruvia's mind-screwing done and over with, and Percy facing off against that knight wannabe, it was my job to shoot off a flare, so to speak.

Of course, me being me, I thought of a plan pretty quick. I ran over to the hedges that lined the stone paths in the garden and started pulling out twigs and branches. See, while the sky was completely covered in grey clouds with a bit of thunder thrown in for good measure, there hadn't been any rain to speak of. Also, being the last few days before summer vacation, the groundskeepers were in the habit of easing off on watering the plants.

All this meant that all the plants in the Glass Garden were surprisingly dry, luckily for me. When I had a good armful of crispy leaves and sticks, I began weaving them together into something like a torch. As you might imagine, the 'flare' I shot off was on the literal side of things. While I worked, I looked over to see how Percy was doing.

To keep it simple, he was in the middle of a very deadly game of tag, and Wulfaine was it. Percy couldn't take one hit from sword-Randal without getting diced in half, and the knight-giant was good enough that he could keep Percy at a distance now that he knew how wily the guy could be.

Percy ducked, tucked, and rolled his way out of danger every time the gnarly thing Randal had turned into came his way, and man, Wulfaine was way faster than he looked. I'd put him down as some dope, but he definitely knew what he was doing, not giving Percy so much as a second to breathe.

Vendruvia was still passed out and on his shoulders, flopping around upside down. It's been hard to take her seriously since then.

Every once in a while, Percy would throw his hand out at the giant, but it didn't look like it was doing much. If I had to guess, he was trying out the same trick he'd pulled on Randal back in the gym, except it wasn't working fast enough before he'd be forced to dodge out of the way again.

That, and Wulfaine's skin was probably tougher than Randal's had been. Even if he was a _metamorphogos_ who could change into any shape he wanted, it's not like Randal could just turn as strong as a real giant. I don't know exactly how much of a punch Percy's mind bullets packed back then, but the rule is that he can't dish out more force with his powers than he could with his actual body, so I'm guessing it wasn't much.

Not that Percy wasn't damn strong even when he was twelve, but it really pales in comparison to the kind of stuff he could do later. There's nothing more humbling than hearing about what he did to that one hotel… What was it called again? I dunno, it was something about time-traveling orphans or something. I never heard the whole story.

All that said, I figured Percy was doing okay, all things considered. Nothing cut off yet.

Now, you ask, how was I going to set a fire? Well, that's where the genius of my plan can reveal itself. You may remember the matchbox I had in my pocket? Yeah, that was gonna come in real handy.

… Or it would've if it wasn't for how soaked I'd gotten a before. You may remember that too. It's hard to set a fire with what amounts to a little pile of wet sticks.

So, okay, I went ahead with Plan B: make a fire the old fashioned way. That meant I had to go and find my celestial bronze weapon. Well, there's a reason running takes up like a third of our training, and this was it. I went ahead and made the entire stadium-length sprint to where Wulfaine had batted my knife all the way on the other side of the garden, huffing and puffing the whole time.

On my way, I ran past Herncrowen, who sat by itself, roosting, looking at and prodding its clipped wing. It didn't seem to mind me at the time, so I went around it, watching out for the beak just in case. A sad trill left it as it saw me go by, not moving from its spot on the stone path.

I was almost there when Percy came flying in, landing hard on the grass a few feet ahead of me. Slowly, he stood up, practically dragging himself to his feet. His clothes were as good as rags, and there were more than a few places where he was covered in blood. Nothing serious, but it looked like death from a thousand cuts was a real thing after all, because from the way his legs shook, he'd drop at any second.

His sunglasses looked spotless, of course. I wouldn't put it past him to have been protecting them above everything else.

He saw me and smiled, wiping a drop of blood off his cheek. "Oh, hey man, fancy seeing you here."

Having come to a stop out of sheer surprise, my first reaction was to send him a dirty look. "Are you seriously trying to be cool right now?"

"Is it working? You might wanna duck, by the way."

Whenever anyone tells you that in the middle of a fight, you better do it. So I followed his advice and ducked, and sure enough, a heavy, black sword swiped at where my neck was just a second later.

Wulfaine tripped a bit, having overextended, probably expecting some resistance while cutting my head off. An opportunist, Percy thrust out his hand, punching the air, and Wulfaine grunted, stepping back to hold his nose, eyes watering.

I stumbled away, looking back. Wulfaine's nose was completely broken, almost caved in, all purple and bloody. Percy might've looked like he'd ran the gauntlet with all his injuries, but Wulfaine's nose was the only part of him that looked out of order. It took me a second to realize that Percy, having seen that his previous tactic of 'hit everywhere really fast' wasn't gonna fly that time, had switched things up and started focusing on the weakest part of the giant's body he could, hitting it over and over. Brutal, huh?

Whatever, I wasn't gonna cry for the one trying to kill me. "I'm gonna get us out of here, so cover me," I told Percy, running past him to where I'd seen my knife fall.

Behind me, Wulfaine brought his sword up, pointing it at my back, some nonsense coming out of his bloody mouth. I reached the bush that my knife was in, and began looking for it, eyes going from my hunt to the confrontation not too far away—not far enough for me to feel comfortable about it, at least.

Randal's voice reached me as I looked around, digging through the shrubbery "My lord says, 'Halt, villain, thou shalt not—' Oh, he's already gone."

Percy made a rather distasteful sound with his throat. "Urg, gross? That is seriously not okay, man."

I'm guessing Randal's method of speech wasn't exactly charming. Maybe he, like, turned that eye on the handle into a mouth or something, I don't know. I was kinda busy at the time. Eventually, after a while of hearing a mix of panting and the swoosh of steel cutting through air behind me, I saw a glint of copper, and I reached for it, hands wrapping around the handle and pulling my knife out of the leaves.

Alright, so I had everything I needed. Then and there, I knelt down at the stone path and swiped my knife across it, testing. Sparks shot out, and even though I was pretty sure it'd work, I still felt myself loosen up, sighing.

I did it again, this time making sure to catch the sparks with my assortment of dry plants. The fire caught. Slowly, I blew into the embers, and they grew and grew until soon I had a workable torch in my hands.

This is where my plan really began. I began speedwalking around the garden, trying not to go so fast that the fire would get put out, lighting up every bush, hedge, shrub, thicket, and tree in my way. All along, I kept half my attention, on Percy's fight, specifically on Wulfaine, who I hoped would be too distracted to notice what was happening.

But Percy was doing good work. The big guy had a river of tears freefalling from his eyes at that point, and his nose was well and truly crushed. Percy didn't seem to be having too much trouble dodging any of his attacks anymore, mostly because Wulfaine could barely see past the water in his eyes to tell where he was aiming.

At one point, I guess in a last ditch effort, Wulfaine roared and slammed his sword down on the ground, splitting it into chunks, but Percy didn't even have to move to avoid it. The opportunity was there, so Percy took it and, pulling his fist back, clocked the giant one more time, knocking all twenty feet of him down onto his back. Wulfaine was out cold.

Percy huffed, chest beating, then raised his fists and cheered like he'd won a boxing match. I'll hand it to the guy; _I_ was real impressed. I mean, he'd actually made it out of that one alive.

By now, enough of the courtyard was burning that I could let the fire spread by itself, which was good, because the mass of twigs I'd been using had burnt up into ashes.

Man, I wonder what everyone's reaction was walking back into school to see _that_ mess. I heard the principal cried when he saw it. They did a pretty good job of handling it though; the Glass Garden was mostly replanted by the time I came back to school in September.

But I'd done what I set out to do. You'd have to be blind to not have seen the wave of brown smoke that billowed out from that fire. Now that I think about it, the parents outside must've freaked the hell out, huh? I could only hope that Beckendorf had gotten the message, because unlike Percy, I hadn't forgotten that we weren't out of the woods just yet.

It was when Percy looked at me, with that stupid grin that screamed 'did you watch that?' that Randal made his move. His sword form dissolved, and that same dark matter that marked a shapeshift covered Wulfaine's unconscious body in a sort of cloudy shell.

"My lord, I'm afraid I must borrow your strength to exterminate these vermin!"

The mass rose, and Wulfaine's body with it. Eventually, it settled into armor, all black, with a flat-topped helmet and an emblem carved into the chestplate. A white tree with red roots. You've seen it on some shirts and stuff out there, right? They've really made a killing in merchandising.

Anyway, this wasn't a great situation we were in. I don't know exactly how _metamorphogos_ work biologically, but I do know that they take on some of the properties of the things they turn into. Randal's giant form wasn't as tough or strong as the real deal, and his version of steel probably wasn't either, but a level under steel isn't that bad, especially when you have a real giant's body to go along with it.

Obviously, Percy's celebration was cut short. The Wulfaine-Randal combo began walking at him, each clank of metal on stone echoing over the sound of burning grass.

"This is the power of our resolve! Do you see now, mortal?" The voice seemed to come from everywhere. It had to have been some kind of sound trick, but that on top of the wisps of darkness that leaked out of the spaces between steel plate really upped the creepy factor. If anything, I gotta give it up to their showmanship. "If you kill us, we'll just come back stronger! We'll come back again and again, as long as it takes, until one day, I can eat all of you down to the bone! Preferably as some kind of baked delicacy!"

It's too bad. That was turning out to be a real nice bad guy speech

Percy was right there with me. "You're making it hard to be scared of you, man." He just pushed his sunglasses up and held out his fists like a boxer. "Either way, I'm kinda happy you're ready for round two. Your buddy didn't put up much of a fight."

He had to be bluffing, I thought. Percy was basically a Jackson Pollock painting if the guy only had a can of red paint to work with. His shirt was a postmodern masterpiece by itself, and one of his legs was clearly not working properly.

The black knight must've thought the same, because it laughed, the sound booming. "I like your mettle kid, but that won't be necessary. Fortunately for you—"

He sprung at me, _fast_ , right in my face just like that before I could even blink.

"You're not my target!"

His fist pulled back, he threw his entire weight behind it, aiming right for my head. It would've probably tore it right off my shoulders. Right before he could, the punch got blown off course, the sheer force of it blowing my hair back, barely nicking the side of my neck.

I stepped back, a hand coming up to where I'd been scratched. When I brought it up to my eyes, it was covered in blood. I realized I'd almost just died. I stepped back on shaky feet, ready to throw up.

From his place a ways away, Percy let out a breath, finger gun pointed at us. "That was close! I thought I'd miss!" He laughed, eyes closed.

I stared at him and saw him for the first time. There I was, trained to be in the middle of this kind of shit and still freaking out, because hey, I was twelve years old. Not even that; I was a human being who'd never feared for his life. As far as I could see, Percy should've been in the same situation as me. But there he was, laughing away without a care in the world.

Nothing about him was normal, even back then. It was actually kinda creepy. I thought, what the hell was he doing before all this? Did this kid go to war or something? He told me he didn't know anything about gods and monsters being real, and allegedly everything that was happening was new for him, but he hadn't raised as much as an eyebrow at the kinds of things that were giving me near-constant heart attacks. I should've been better prepared for it than he was, if only because I knew all of this stuff was possible in the first place!

The Malcolm part of me was weirded out. The Athena part of me was curious. And another part of me, something nameless then, something I wouldn't be dealing with for a good long while, was jealous.

The black knight looked back at Percy, fists clenched. "I've given you a lot of chances here kid. You're making it hard to let you off the hook here." It sounded more than a little glad about that, too.

Percy shrugged, smiling even as he reached up to wipe away some blood from the corner of his lips. "Running isn't really my style."

There was smoke everywhere by then. I had to step back onto the stone path to avoid getting burned along with the pride of Quint's tour guides. The black knight just walked through the flames, heading straight for Percy.

Finally, the black knight pulled the same trick it'd tried on me, lunging at Percy with all the strength it could get, cracking the ground under it. Percy stood his ground, arms rearing back to meet the giant with his own power.

Then, he stumbled forward, his leg giving under him, and the black knight sailed right over him, landing on its face a few feet away. I almost rushed forward myself, ready to shout, but the thought of that monster's hands on me stopped me cold. I stayed right where I was, watching with wide eyes.

Getting to its feet, the black knight loomed over Percy, who stayed on his knees. He couldn't pick himself up as much as he tried. Then he looked at me, saw me standing there, he smiled wide, like he'd heard a really great joke. And I was ashamed of myself more than ever.

"Looks like I'm dead!" he said. Simple. Like it was always bound to happen anyway.

I didn't want to watch whatever was about to happen next. But I couldn't take my eyes away, even as the black knight raised a fist, set on bringing it down like a hammer on Percy's head. "It was a fun time, wasn't it, kid?" it said, laughing along.

The monster brought its hand down. Percy didn't stop smiling. I saw everything, right up until the fist bigger than Percy's own head got within inches of slamming down.

Then, a big, red truck charged out from fire behind the two, crashing into the black knight like the wrecking ball it was and sending the monster flying.

The truck skid to a stop right beside Percy, who was still kneeling right there where he'd almost just gotten his head crushed in. A window slid down, and Charles goddamn Beckendorf looked at me with his beautiful scowl, hand beaconing.

"Malcolm! Come on, let's get out of here quick!"

I'd never been more relieved to hear Beck's voice, and before I could even tell myself to do it, I ran over as fast as I could with how tired and beat up I was. On the way, I took Percy and slung his arm over my shoulder.

"Looks like I'm alive!" he said.

"I can't believe you said _I_ was crazy," I said, opening the backseat and tossing him in. Then, I ran around the truck and slid into shotgun, because hey, he hadn't called it.

As soon as we were inside, Beck put the petal to the metal wheels screetching. It took only a couple seconds to realize that we weren't actually moving. Beck and I looked back as one, and behind Percy's stupid grinning face we could see the black knight holding onto the truck's tailgate hard enough to dent it with its fingers.

"This thing has five-hundred horsepower! What the hell is that guy?!" Beck said.

"Does it matter?" I said, the panic beginning to creep back in. "Do something before it kills us!"

"Damn! I haven't tested this yet, but…" Beck's finger flipped open a glass cover, then hovered about a big, red button. "Buckle up! And you, get in the middle seat!"

He'd been addressing Percy, who followed his advice easy enough.

"Get ready for the ride of your lives! Let's go, Molten Chariot, Mark Two!"

He pressed the button. I felt my seat sink, and I saw that the same happened to Beck's next to me. The roof shifted, sinking along with us, the truck becoming more slanted. The backseat turned into a single one. Out from under the two seats at either side of Percy, two giant jet engines popped out, their other halves taking up all of the truck bed outside.

It suddenly felt like I should hold on to something, and I did, the door handle biting into my hand through the leather finish. It wasn't enough. The engines starting up eventually took over my senses, my body trembling along with the car. Something exploded behind us.

One second, we were literally burning rubber, and the next, well, we were figuratively burning rubber. The tailgate was pulled off completely, and I thank God every day that Beck had enough forethought to aim us at one of the exits, because if he hadn't, we'd probably have taken down a whole building by driving into it at supersonic speed.

Within seconds, Quint was just a fading dot in the distance. Even though I couldn't move, the sheer G forces gluing me to my seat, I finally let all the adrenaline and tension from the past half hour leave me.

The jet engines got exhausted half a minute later, and by then we were on a different state. We stopped to refuel at a gas station, and Beck was cool enough to buy us new clothes, even if we couldn't find any that fit us well. It's not like anything could be worse than the stuff we had on already.

I silently cried for all of my stuff that I'd been forced to leave behind. Percy didn't seem to mind. I ended up giving him the rest of my ambrosia pills, and he was good as new soon enough. After that, we spent a few days driving up to New York.

There's really not much to say about our trip there. I mean, nothing came to attack us, we didn't run into anything very interesting. The standard road trip isn't very fun unless you're in it, after all. Plus, the real adventure was waiting for us in Camp Half-Blood.

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	4. Book 2, Act 1

**BOOK TWO: HOME BASE**

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I'd say our odds are about as good as they've ever been. I mean, something like this happens every five hundred years or so. Maybe it's not _quite_ as extreme, but you get the idea, right?

If it makes you feel any better, you were always gonna have to deal with this one way or another. Life or death? Good or evil? Everyone has to ask those things at some point. And, yeah, to be fair, things took a more… _literal_ turn this time, but it goes to show that getting the answers isn't that easy.

Alright, alright, I'll get off my soapbox. Now, where were we…

The Hephaestus General Workshop wasn't what it is now, but they did have some pretty cool stuff going for them back in the day. The Smithing Department was as big as ever, with Robotics and Auto-Engineering growing more by the year. All of that, and the cabin on top of it? Let's just say those guys had their own little compound in the camp even then. Beckendorf had a good time showing it off to Percy when we drove in.

Those two had really hit it off during the trip, but it shouldn't have been all that surprising. Again, Beck's one of the friendliest guys I know. It didn't hurt that Percy was completely in love with what he called the Rocket-Powered Deathmobile. If there's anything that'll put a Hephaestus kid in your corner, it's praising their work.

Percy wanted to stick around for a while and see all the cool androids or whatever it was he thought they had, but I had to bring him to the Big House and have him sign up for camp. I'd practically dragged the guy all the way to camp after making him fight to the death for me, so I guess you could say I felt a tad responsible.

Plus, I wanted to get back to the library and pour over our database for anything that could help me find out what the hell he was. That question had been nagging at me for days, ever since I had enough time after everything at Quint had gone down to really think about what had happened.

Mind magic or whatever was one thing, but Percy was beyond ridiculous in other ways too. He could swallow half my stock of ambrosia and not die horribly, and those monsters had said he wasn't a target even though they kept saying they were going after demigods. Apparently, his scent was something else too, strong enough to hide mine. There was also the way he'd completely shrugged off Vendruvia's doom aura, but something told me that had less to do with his powers and more to do with… well, _him_.

The trip to the Big House had Percy asking me about everything in sight and me doing a pretty great job of ignoring him. Then we—

What? Oh, right, the Big House. Sorry, it hasn't been that long since we blew it up.

The Big House wasn't actually all that big, to be honest. Blue, just two floors, an attic, a porch, and a basement. There was a rec room with a ping pong table where we had all the cabin meetings, and Chiron's office was there, too. I've heard that at some point they even had the Oracle there, maybe in the attic, y'know, before they decided she was probably important enough to get her own place.

It's not _that_ hard to believe. There weren't as many campers back then as there are now, you know. One building was plenty of room to have all that stuff. Now? Well, it's a good thing we upgraded.

Getting back to it, we got all of Percy's paperwork out of the way in no time at all. He didn't have an address, or parents, which sounds sad, but the actual sad part is that we're pretty used to that.

There was some strangeness involved, though, as there always is with him. Percy didn't have anyone taking care of him, but he _did_ have a legal guardian. That made sense; I mean, _someone_ had to enroll him in Quint. The weird part was that Percy himself had apparently never met this person, and he didn't care to. As long as they were paying for all his shenanigans, he was fine with it, I guess? After that, we told Chiron what had happened a few days before. At least, _I_ told him what happened. Percy was too busy staring at his legs.

We sat in the living room on plush couches while Chiron paced back and forth, hooves thumping on the wooden floor with a _clop, clop, clop_. That didn't help Percy either.

We were surrounded by all sorts of stuff. There were lots of paintings, some looking like they belonged in a museum, others looking like doodles from a math notebook, but all made by campers at one point or another. There was a rainbow of drapes and tapestries hanging up against the ceiling and walls, not to mention dream catchers and bead-strings hooked up everywhere. Every table and desk was full of books or some kind of knick-knack—from some quest or from some random antique store, I couldn't tell. Old horns, glass orbs on Rubik's cube pedestals, the stray cowboy hat here and there… Not to mention the mess of carpets, placed one over the other.

Man, I miss that place.

"Unbelievable," Chiron was saying, stroking his beard, finally stopping in place next to Lory. She was his assistant at the time, serious as always, a fresh cup of coffee ready and waiting in her hand. "That certainly sounds like a terrifying group of monsters to come across, especially for ones your age. I'm glad you managed to make it back safely."

"Yeah, well, you can thank this guy," I said, waving at Percy, who was still staring. I elbowed him in the arm, but he just looked at me and pointed right at Chiron's horse legs.

"Mal, you seeing this?"

"How is this still…." I palmed my face, cheeks growing red just from being associated with the doofus. "I told you about him on the way here because I knew you'd act like this. You already knew about… Ugh…" I sunk into my seat.

Percy didn't seem to notice my obvious embarrassment. "It's one thing to hear about it, but it's a whole other thing to _see_ it, like…" He turned to Chiron, who looked back, probably laughing to himself. "Dude, how do those _feel_? Is it hard to walk around with four of them?"

"I can't say I'm not used to it, at least," Chiron said, pretending to not notice my self-incubation. "Easy enough after a few thousand years."

He's always been cool, if you're wondering. There's a reason practically everyone around here respects him, and it's not just because of how intense he can get during training. With his greying hairline, calm face, and his proclivity for tweed, it's no wonder most of the people who've come to camp all these years consider him a kind of second dad.

Chiron held his hand out, and Lory gave him the coffee like they'd rehearsed it, the two not even looking at each other. "Now, Percy Jackson, was it?" he asked, then took a sip.

"That's me!" Percy, always proud to share his name with others. "And you're, uh… Carmen?"

That bastard, I know for a fact now that he has a photographic memory! I was willing to let it go then because I figured he'd been getting a lot of info to deal with at the time, but now it's obvious he just wasn't paying any attention when I was explaining stuff to him!

Chiron didn't seem to mind, bless him. "Chiron, Director of Camp Half-Blood, at your service," he said, smiling back. "I'm sure you feel overwhelmed at everything that has transpired, Percy, but I assure you, within these borders, you are completely safe."

"Thanks! I'm not really worried about that, though. More importantly…" He sprang up from his seat, shades sliding on, posing like some rock star, the whole Percy experience. "I'm here cuz I heard you guys're all about beating up bad guys and stuff! Anyone need any heroing done?"

Here, Chiron did turn to me, and I could only shrug. "I kept trying to tell him what we were _actually_ about, but he won't listen to me," I said, and honestly, by then I was tired of trying. The guy had to be delusional, I thought, because at that point it was clear we were beyond any sort of make believe game he could've been playing.

"I'm afraid that the type of hero you have in mind and the type that we train are somewhat different, Percy," Chiron said. I suppose everyone else but me had this habit of treating Percy's eccentricities less like serious psychological problems and more like fun little quirks. "You're in luck, however, for I do have a quest for you."

That got Percy's attention. "Yes! Any evil organizations that need to get brought down? Any takeover plots from the inside? Maybe a save-the-world adventure right off the bat? I'm ready, man!"

"I hereby charge you with the duty of… completing your tour of Camp Half-Blood so that you know all our faculties and activities! Your guide should be here any moment now…"

It was a slow process. Percy's realization, I mean. You know, finding out that he wasn't about to join the Justice League or whatever he thought was gonna happen. Like finding out Santa isn't real. It was beautiful, really.

He swerved around to me. "You tricked me," he said, and really, he didn't even look that mad about it. More of a disappointment, like he'd gotten less gifts this year compared to the last one. I really don't know what's up with all these Christmas analogies, but they're working out so far, so…

"No I didn't, you're just an idiot." What a weird thing to say about the guy who got better grades than me all year long, but a part of me was sort of relieved. I mean, it's one thing for him to get a better GPA because of his ridiculous memory, but at least he wasn't actually _smart_ , or maybe he was just crazy. Either way—

Actually, no, that's another thing! The only reason he beat me in our grades all year was because he used his photographic memory to literally memorize every textbook front and back! He never even had to pay attention in classes! Screw him, screw bullshit mind magic, and most of all, screw our fucking education system for being shitty enough to let that kind of thing fly!

Ahem. Sorry about that.

Either way, I felt like it was time for me to leave. Percy was in, that was that, and now I could hopefully wash my hands of the guy for the foreseeable future. So, sucking in a breath, I stood up and held my hand out to him, ready to do just that. "Well, I'm gonna go now. It was… an experience, Percy. I guess I'll see you arou—"

Right then, Percy's tour guide walked in. Dirty blonde hair flowed from her ponytail like a leak in a dam, gushing out into a gentle stream down over her shoulder. Her face, rounded by youth as it was, held an inkling of the angelic figure that years of sweat out in the field and the wild would mold. Honeyed eyes briefly caught mine, a small, playful smile following the recognition that passed between us. She was also completely covered in mud and dirt, but it was damn endearing.

"Mal? You were saying something?"

The moment I got what was going on, I immediately threw my arm around Percy's shoulders, bringing him close to me and giving my best impression of his megawatt smile that I could. "I, uh, was saying that I'll see you around camp, as in, I'll go _with_ you, as you… look around camp… heh heh…"

Alright, looking back, this wasn't one of my best moments, I'll admit that.

Thankfully, Percy was rather simple when it came to this kind of stuff. "Oh, that's great!" he said, throwing his own arm around mine, and by then we looked like quite the pair of peas in that pod. "Y'know, I had a feeling you didn't like me that much! I guess we really did bond, huh?"

"You sure got that right… ol' buddy ol' pal… Oh, Katie, what a coincidence! How're things?"

Okay, yes, I had a crush on Katie Gardener. Emphasis on _had_. What can I say? I like girls who can get their hands dirty. _Don't_. You know what I meant.

"Same as ever. Good to see you're still alive, Malcolm," she said, and the thought of her worrying about whether or not I was dead sent a thrill through my chest. Closing the door behind her, she grimaced before looking down at the dirty footmark she'd made on the carpet. "Ah, sorry, Chiron! I keep forgetting to take my shoes off outside…"

Of course, Chiron didn't think it was that big of a deal. "No matter, Katherine. If anything, I should apologize for calling you here, knowing how busy things must be for you with Jubilee right around the corner."

She waved it off. "I'm the one who signed up for the job." Her eyes traveled to Percy's, or they would've had it not been for his glasses blocking her view of them. Raising a brow, she held her hand out, grimed in brown as it was. "Speaking of which, I guess I'm here for you, huh, cool guy?"

"That's right." Percy stepped forward, taking her hand without an ounce of hesitation, smile already there. "I'm Percy Jackson! Nice to meet'cha, Kit-Kat!"

"You're fast on the nicknames," she said. Internally, I rooted for her. Yeah, Katie, I thought, I know what you're going through. We'll handle this weirdo together!

"Oh, I guess so! It's because we're gonna be friends, though, so you can call me whatever you want, too."

Katie stared at him. I stared at him. Then I stared at their hands. They were still holding hands. _They were holding hands_. I got the sudden and violent impulse to drop kick him out the window. But I didn't. Barely.

That impulse turned into a full-blown whirlwind when Katie smiled back and brought her other hand up to put his single one in between both of hers. "Oh, I _like_ you. Let's go show you around!" She led him to the door, still holding his hand, and opening it, she turned back to Chiron and I, waving goodbye. "I'll see you later, Chiron, Malcolm! Call me if you need me!"

The door closed behind them. I could hear them chatting all the way down the path, their voices fading bit by bit until all that was left was the sound replaying in my imagination.

Then I exploded into a fury of fire and brimstone unlike anything you'll hear in even the most fundamentalist of Catholic masses. My eyes were alight, my fists were clenched red, my face was twisted into a half breed child birthed by the ultimate unholy union between rage and complete mystification.

My thought process went something along the lines of, what the hell?! How did he do that?! Since when was that nutcase, grade-school wannabe, death-gripped telekinetic freak of nature a goddamn socialite?! First Beck, and now Katie Gardner in two fucking seconds?!

A cough interrupted my descent into my own personal little corner of hell, and face slack, I looked over at Lory. "Weren't you going to accompany them… Mal?" she asked. Next to her, Chiron was channeling his thousands of years of resilience into trying not to laugh in my face.

Suddenly, I remembered where I was, and who I was with, and that was enough to splash the cold shower of shame down on my boiling skin. "Ah… right." I went to the door, making sure not to look at him when I walked by. "I'll just… go…" And since then, I haven't been near either of them without being embarrassed to some extent.

So I went with Percy and Katie. And let's just say that I got third-wheeled harder than I ever have in my life. The worst part was that it wasn't even an _actual_ third-wheeling. They didn't _like_ each other that way, at least not then. It was a third-wheel of friendship, except for me it wasn't even about the friendship.

But whatever, Percy got to see Camp Half-Blood in its heyday. Things used to be a lot more sparse back then. Zeus and Hera had their own little hill where they could look down on everyone else in all their empty, marbled glory. I'm thinking the inside of their cabins were filled with dust bunnies, but from the outside, they looked way cleaner than any of the others. Way bigger too, with some exceptions. Makes sense; Zeus' cabin was less a cabin and more a mini Parthenon.

Poseidon's cabin was just a small, single story building. You would've confused it with a beach shack if it wasn't for the seastone that made each wall, the blue rock carved into vertical supports. They hadn't added the pool yet, so things were pretty depressing there too.

The people over at Demeter's really expanded their business recently, but back then they only had around a thousand acres of farm land. Basically, it was possible to actually _find_ the cabin. They didn't have the bakery set up yet, though, so at least we got that out of the deal, even if now we lose like one or two kids a month in the farms.

Ares' place was seriously underwhelming. They didn't even have the fort set up yet. The only good it did in my unbiased opinion was make Athena's look better by comparison. And hey, I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything, believe me, we needed it. The Hootings Library was only big enough to hold twenty thousand books. Can you believe that? We didn't even have a second wing yet.

The Apollo Cabin was still going through its light insulation phase. You haven't heard about that? One day, way, way back, some Asclepius kid decided it'd be a great idea to sneak in there and steal their research on the Panacea, and I'm talking Panacea with a capital 'P' here. The ultimate medicine that can cure any sickness. Apollo got so mad about it that he made the entire cabin shine like a giant spotlight, to the point that staring at it for longer than a few seconds at a time could kill your eyes. They had to cover the whole thing with a black tarp just so everyone else in camp wouldn't go blind from living near them.

Man, that situation just blew up into this whole big thing. I can't even blame Percy for it, I mean, it wasn't his fault that he—

Um, actually, let me stay on task here. Needless to say, Apollo's cabin isn't a visual hazard anymore.

Artemis' cabin is the same as always. Pretty much a glorified, all-girls motel if you ask me.

Who's left? Jeez, I'm glad we didn't have as many cabins back then, because this would take forever. I already talked about Hephaestus', Aphrodite's was more of a Barbie dollhouse than the Barbie doll-mansion that it is now, Dionysus' was trashed as always, and Hermes Lodge was just _crowded_. Imagine what we have now, but add like a hundred more people.

It's always interesting to watch a newbie see all this stuff for the first time. You remember the first time you saw the pegasus stables, maybe with a few flying around the rings, maybe even with people on them? The first time you saw lava flowing down the climbing wall in Riker's Gauntlet? Your first view of the special effects at the amphitheater, or the prototype mech suits walking around the arena?

I'll give you some more advice. Anytime you see a new camper, ask to show them around. Bring them to see something not everyone might know about. Watch their expression. Percy was a hard nut to crack, but man, it was harder for him to hide the glow on his face. A little bit of that glow reaches you, and you'll find yourself remembering why some of the things you've gotten so used to aren't that easy to believe after all.

It was easy to forget about the third-wheeling.

When we were done, we all sat on a bench overlooking the lake, watching the canoeing club racing across, the three boats neck and neck with each other, the sun going down behind the north woods. I made sure to sit in the middle.

Percy still had his shades on, and for the first time it was actually appropriate, letting him block out the sun rays that hit me and Katie. He's the one who picked the spot, but Katie didn't complain, so I didn't either.

"Alright, I guess I can see myself hanging around here for a summer or two," he said. A solar system made of pebbles orbited lazily above his hand, his fingers twirling. I knew then that the gesturing was only for the cool factor; he'd been messing around with his powers all day, with or without the motions, damn the spectators. Katie had eaten it up, of course, though I couldn't really blame her for that. I'd been just as amazed as anyone else the first time I saw it.

"It's fun, and it's safe. It's home. For a lot of us, anyway," she said.

"That's nice for you guys," Percy said, then, turning to me, "You never told me that everyone else had powers too, Mal."

"Yeah I did."

"What? I don't remember that."

"Did you pay attention to _anything_ I said on the way here?"

Katie laughed next to me, and we both broke from our now tired argument to look for what was so funny. Apparently, it was us.

"You know, Percy, I thought Mal was mute when I met him," she said, and I didn't know whether to be annoyed at Percy's nickname for me catching on or put off by finding out I'd given her anything other than a good first impression. "He'd always just stare at everyone and not talk. I almost peed my pants when he actually said something to me a week later."

Well, I wasn't gonna sit around and take that, even from her. "I _am_ right here, you know."

"See? You've got something to say after all, don't you, Mal?" She put her hand on my shoulder, and I felt any dejection on my part melt away at her touch. "I guess I better thank Percy for finally letting me get to know you a little."

Her face was close. I could see the small scar over her eyebrow, a little thing barely the size of the nail on my pinkie. I felt myself blush. But of course, Percy had to ruin the moment by throwing an arm over my shoulders and jostling me around.

"No problem! That's what friends do, right?" He was always way too excited about this sort of thing, I thought, though for once, I couldn't be bothered to care all that much.

Katie's words had wormed their way into my head, and now I couldn't help but play around with the idea that maybe she had a point. Had I been keeping to myself too much? Should I be more assertive? Who else would be my friend if I just spoke up a bit more? All these thoughts and more flitted through my mind, more sentiments than actual questions. I could feel a small knot tie up in my chest.

"That's what I'm talking about, right there. Look at his face, it's doing that thing again," Katie said.

Just before I could answer, a pebble hit me right between the eyes. "Don't fear, Mal!" Percy said. "Real heroes fight against grumpiness too!"

I would've taken my revenge, but there wasn't much room for me to move up on the comeuppance rankings. Instead, I gave him by best flat stare. "I'm the one who lit a crapton of fireworks under your seat."

There, I'd said what I had on my mind. For the first time all day, I caught him by surprise; I could tell by his face, even behind the sunglasses. "You were?" he said. I nodded, staring at him as seriously as I could.

He threw his head back and laughed. All the pebbles in the air dropped right down, focus lost. I felt myself smile a bit.

Katie leapt from her seat and went to stand in front of us, hands on her hips. "Alright! I'm totally worn out, so just a few last things! Percy?" She snapped her fingers, and he stopped, turning to look at her. Whether or not he was actually paying attention wasn't clear, but I'm gonna guess he was. She's always been good at getting that from him. "Just to make sure, when does your day start tomorrow?"

He groaned, running a hand through his hair. "Gah, don't remind me, Kat."

"Come on."

"At eleven, wasn't it?"

"It's at nine."

"Ah, right, that's what I meant. At ten."

She stared at him for a second, but decided to drop it. "Remember to go to combat training. And your Greek class."

"Do I have to?"

" _Everyone_ has to. How else are you gonna learn to fight?"

I raised a hand. "To be fair," and God knows why I tried to be, "I don't think the basics'll help him out all that much at this point." Then, just to make sure he knew I wasn't actually on his side, "But I agree with the Greek. You can't even read the sign at the front gate."

It was actually the last straw for me. There was way too much evidence for Percy not being a demigod, and at that point I was sure he wasn't. The problem with that was, if he wasn't a demigod after all, then _what was he?_ I figured it was about time for me to get onto finding that out, and luckily for me, I wasn't the only one who wanted to call it a day.

"Alright then, I guess I skipped enough work for today," Katie said. The grime covering her had long ago crusted over, but she didn't seem to mind it. "It was fun, guys! Mal, I'll let you show him where he'll be staying."

Oh, Katie. I let her get away with way too much back then. I still do, of course, but at least now it's a conscious decision.

She waved at us as she left, with one final insistence for Percy to "remember to go to training!" to which he responded with "remember to shampoo." I personally though the earthy smell fit her, but maybe that was just me.

So, I took Percy over to Hermes Lodge, where all the unclaimed kids stayed back then. It's the main reason the place was so packed; you'd be floored at how many people never got claimed at all, well into leaving the camp one way or another. Hermes being the God of Wanderers, I guess you could say it was a good fit. At least, we all thought so at the time, and had thought so for hundreds of years.

But the people at the lodge have always been quick to make friends, so Percy didn't have a hard time fitting in. Lost children have a good sense for each other, it looks like. Either way, he was taken off my hands pretty quick when we walked into the lobby by the Stolls, and they had a good laugh about the whole firework debacle. Before they could climb the stairs, I guess Katie must've rubbed off on me through the day, because I found myself reminding him about the next day myself.

"You guys are a real pain," he had said, hand on the wooden railing, some leftover chuckles left over from something Connor had said. "I got it all in my head right here." He pointed for emphasis. "I won't miss out on anything I don't want to, so stop hounding me already."

That son of a bitch, I should've known he'd worded things the way he did for a reason. The next day, I found him hanging out with Beckendorf at the Hephaestus auto shop, and according to him, he'd been there since he'd woken up at noon after a whole night of fighting games and snacks with the Stolls.

Being the Hephaestus Cabin head, Beck got his own little corner in the warehouse, a closed off spot about as big as the average garage. The place was a mess, with all sorts of spare parts and tools just lying around the floor and the workbench over by the corner, on top of which Percy was sitting. The Molten Chariot was propped up, completely stripped down to make way for what looked to be mark three.

When I asked Percy why he wasn't in the arena—or shouted it, actually, with all the noise of a dozen people banging and screwing into metal—he just shrugged, not even turning around to address me. H watched Beck welding some bronze panels onto his car. "I just didn't feel like it today," he'd said.

"What kind of excuse is that?" I said, my own eyes beginning to stray over to Beck, because hey, I'm a guy too, and you won't find a single one that won't be interested in a mini flamethrower melting metal together. But I was stronger than him, _and_ my male instincts! "You can't not do things just because you don't feel like doing them!"

"Huh? Sure I can." That bastard, looking at me like _I_ was being the unreasonable one.

It was clear I wasn't getting anywhere with him, so I looked over at Beckendorf, who'd taken a break from his work. "Beck, can you help me out here?"

The big guy was pulling the welding helmet off and wiping away the sweat from his forehead. "I already tried telling him, but he won't listen to anyone, Mal." Damn it, why did that name get around so fast?

Percy leaned over to look behind Beckendorf's huge figure, his eyes lighting up. "Woah, cool, Beck! It'd be hard for that giant guy to take a hit from that thing now!"

Beckendorf scratched the back of his neck, letting out a toothy smile. "It _is_ pretty cool, huh?!"

'He won't listen to anyone' my ass. It was clear Percy had him wrapped around his little finger at that point. So, I took it upon myself to handle it, seeing as I was apparently the only adult around.

I'd spent a few days with Percy by then, so I figured I knew him pretty well. At least, I knew him well enough to know how to get him to do what I wanted. "You know, Percy, it's not _just_ training that we do over at the arena. We also do things like chariot races, and gymnastics…"

"Boooring…"

Alright, fair enough. So I stopped playing around and went in for the kill. "Oh, right, we also do duels."

That made him perk up a bit, his ear almost leaning in on its own. "… Duels?"

"Yeah, you know, fighting. Usually one-on-one, but some people like doing teams too. We have a tournament once a year. Should be coming up at some point this month, actually…"

"Wait, hold on." Percy hopped down from the workbench, walking over to me and invading my personal space pretty hard. I tried not to let it bother me, though I couldn't help but lean back a little. "So you're telling me that you guys go over there and beat each other up until one of you wins, right?"

"That's… an interesting way to put it, but basically."

"…. Are people here strong, or are _you_ , like, the average around here?"

That stung a bit, but I wasn't about to complain. Not that I could really argue that, anyway. "I'm pretty sure _you're_ the average around here," I said, more or less lying through my teeth. I say more or less because I was pretty sure there were other people there at the time who could beat a giant by themselves, but I could only really count enough to fit on one hand, and it's not like I'd ever seen anyone go as far in a fight as he had back in Quint. Again, life-or-death battles weren't exactly a daily occurrence in camp.

"No way," he said, but I could tell he was more than intrigued enough by then. And to seal the deal, Beck added his own two cents.

"I wouldn't know, but from what you guys told me, I guess you're pretty strong, huh, Percy?" He was digging around a small drawer full of tools, not oven looking down at them, but pulled out exactly the wrench he happened to be looking for. "I wouldn't put it past some people here to beat you, though. Clarisse is a monster in the arena, and Lee's been going up the ranks recently. Hell, some of the people _here_ can kick some serious butt when they pull out the big guns."

Percy rubbed at his chin, and it was clear to me that now the only thing holding him back was the fact that he hadn't wanted to go at first. "Do you go fight too, Beck?" he said.

"Nah. I'm a lover, not a fighter." Beckendorf lay down on a creeper, ready to roll under his car. "Unless it's a derby, then sign me right up! Peh, beat me _one_ time and tell me off like that… I'll show those smug little…" he disappeared under the Molten Chariot, feet sticking out, so we didn't quite catch what he had to say, but it probably wasn't very nice.

Anyway, things were working out for me here. God knew why Percy was such a nut, but if there was anything I knew he was into, it was showing off his powers, and the more impressive they looked, the better it was for him. Knowing that, I made sure to put the cherry on top. "You're actually pretty lucky coming in now, Percy. There's this one guy I'm sure you'll wanna meet."

"Oh yeah?"

"Oh yeah. He's supposed to be the best swordsman in three hundred years. I'm surprised you haven't met him actually; he's the Hermes counselor, and man, last year he fought a dragon with a hundred heads and—"

Percy began chuckling to himself, hair hanging low over the tops of his eyes and doing a good job of giving him that patented serial killer look. It wasn't that I regretted saying all that stuff, but man, at the time I felt sorry for whoever happened to be in the arena that day.

* * *

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	5. Book 2, Act 2

Percy fought _dirty_. That's the first thing I thought, seeing him wipe the floor with anyone man enough to take him on. I'd planned on leading him over to the arena and leaving him to his own devices, but I guess I was building up a habit of sticking around for his shenanigans even when I didn't really want to. Anyone would, though, especially with how things had started up.

I'd had Percy follow me in through the entrance, stopping for a while to let him marvel at the giant arch. His fish-out-of-water routine never got boring, at least, and I remembered doing about the same the first time I'd walked through it. It's one thing to hear about the Great Pyramid of Giza and Machu Picchu, but to actually see those kinds of places in person? How the hell did human beings drag all those ginormous stone slabs out of some quarry a hundred miles away and arrange them into _anything_ , much less a building, and _much_ less a giant goddamn arena the size of your average department store?

Not even that, but those guys even had the gall to go one step further and make it all fancy. An outside ring for races, a raised platform inside it, and an underground chamber under the whole thing? Those guys weren't messing around. It almost makes you wanna ignore the slavery it was probably built with.

So I had taken Percy down to the Chamber after a few minutes of explaining to him that the main arena wasn't being used at the time. Since there weren't as many people back then, most training was done there, and the stage on top was saved for big events. It also made it easier to walk around the place without bumping into people. I'll praise the guys who built it all the way to my grave, but damn if they didn't make some narrow hallways.

We didn't interrupt much when we got there. Some people were practicing their forms in one corner. A couple were sparring in another. There was a duel going on in the center, and half a dozen campers were sitting in the stands watching it. No one had armor on, and all the weapons were blunted. I guess you could say we had the privilege of taking things easy then.

Percy headed straight for the duel, one between Ramona Lindis from my cabin and Ellis… Wackfield, I think? Whatever, he was an Ares kid. They were going at it pretty hard, I gotta say. A few bruises, and I think I even saw a little blood, though I can't remember all that well. Whatever set them off must've been big.

… Oh, who am I kidding? One of them probably tripped the other or something.

Anyway, Percy headed straight for the two. Didn't even give me enough time to say a quick bye before I went off to my day. He kept walking until he was right in between the two, and luckily, they were aware enough to notice him before they could take another swing at each other, though Ramona's spear was _this_ close to hitting him on the shoulder.

They looked at him, then at each other, then at the spectators, who looked just as confused. It must've been a bit weird to see some random shorty go stand right in the middle of your fight, hands in his pockets, trying to act cool.

He looked up at each of them, then at the audience. I know it gets a little repetitive to hear about how Percy was smiling, but really, it's that he was _always_ _smiling_. It's like he was in the middle of some kind of game all the time and we were all part of it, but we didn't know it.

And it was never mean. At least, I never felt ashamed whenever I saw it, like he was making fun of me. He was laughing along with me, or he would've been, if I had known what was so funny. Maybe that's why I was already on my way over to sit in the stands, without even meaning to. The game he was playing looked fun, and I wanted to play I, but I didn't know the rules. If I kept watching him, maybe I'd know what they were. I didn't think it, not exactly, but I _believed_ it.

I guess that's part of why I said we were both dumb. You can't learn the rules from someone who doesn't know them either.

Ramona brought her spear to stand, leaning her weight on it, completely out of the fight. "Um, excuse me? We're in the middle of something."

Seeing her relax, Ellis did the same thing, his sword hanging limp by his side. "Yeah, dude, you can't just mosey on over when people are fighting." He wasn't that mad, surprisingly enough, frowning a little, but his voice softer than I thought it'd be. "See these?" he asked, bringing his sword to bear, showing it to Percy, who glanced at it without much interest. "They're just for training, so they're not sharp, but you could've still gotten hurt."

"If you want to watch, go sit over there." Ramona pointed her spear at the stands, and some of the people sitting by me waved him over. "I'm sure someone'll take you on later, but you have to wait your turn, kid."

They were treating him like some newbie who'd just walked in without knowing anything! Which he was, I suppose, but there's a difference between some wide-eyed junior and a wide-eyed beast who knew what he was doing.

And Percy showed them just that. "Sorry! You guys can be mad at me, but," he shooed them away, like they were his butlers, "I'm taking this, so you can have it back when I'm done."

That had the nice effect of getting the Chamber to quiet down. Even the other campers training off on their own had begun paying attention to what was going on. Percy had all eyes on him, just like he wanted.

"You're… taking this?" Ramona asked, the irritation wiped from her face, replaced with that patented 'who is this guy' expression Percy always got.

"Yup. This," he pointed to the floor, "is mine now. Got a problem with it?"

"You… You bet your ass I do! Who the hell do you think you are?"

He'd been waiting for that question. I knew it then too, because at that point it was clear to me that if there was anything Percy was good at doing, it's what he wanted to do. "I'm Percy Jackson," he said, hand slowly traveling to the collar of his shirt. He grabbed the sunglasses. He popped them open. He slid them on. "And I'm officially taking over this place. If you want it back…" Ramona took a step back, giving me a good view of why. Percy's grin was doing something I'd yet to see it do before. The quirk at the edge of his lips wasn't quite as wide, and it curved up _just_ so. Suddenly, Percy, the shortest kid in the room, felt bigger than anyone else. "You can try to _take_ it from me."

And they did try, those poor bastards. Ramona reached for Percy's shirt—I'm guessing to try and throw him over her shoulder jiu-jitsu style or something—and the moment her fingers brushed the cloth of his collar, she was thrown back like a cannonball, smacking against the floor twenty feet away.

Percy hadn't even lifted a finger, of course. Instead, he lifted a hand like some kind of Buddhist monk and looked over at Ellis, who took a step back, a bit of a sweat building on his forehead. Everyone was watching rather intently by then. Ramona was getting back up, ready to go for round two if the look on her face meant anything.

So when I say that Percy fought dirty, I don't mean that he was going around throwing dirt into people's eyes, or even trash talking in the middle of it. I mean that he didn't have it in him to hold back even a little against anyone. Half the campers that went up against him lost because he lifted them up in the air and then dropped them back down on the floor over and over until they called it quits. I figured Wulfaine had been dealt with so brutally because he was a giant and he was trying to kill us, but apparently that had just been a coincidence where Percy was concerned.

Everyone must've gotten frustrated at either losing so easily or watching their friends lose so easily, because things went on like that for a good half-hour. One girl got held up in the air upside down until she surrendered. Another one got chased around by her own axe. Will Solace tried shooting from the other side of the Chamber, and that worked out at first, but his arrows eventually started turning around and heading for him.

Bentham James got his war hammer dropped on him. Riley Brooker broke one of the wall lamps with her body. Pollux and Castor got their heads knocked into each other. Percy hadn't even moved from his spot.

After a while, I noticed that the Chamber was getting more and more cramped. News about Percy's little challenge must've spread, because more and more campers were walking in, enough that a circle formed around him. They saw each other get beat one after the next, groaning every time it happened, cheering whenever someone managed to not immediately get thrown on their ass. The betting stared up before long, drachmas and dollars getting traded back and forth, people guessing at how many seconds the next challenger would last.

When it was clear that the so called 'normies' weren't gonna stand a chance, the more powered up campers took a swing at it. Percy looked like he'd been having a good time so far, but when Carrie Kumbland managed to bowl him over into the crowd with a good blast of wind, he let out a laugh and paid her back with his own version, kicking the girl from ten feet away.

I sat back in the stands, along with Einar and Feanor, the trainers on duty at the time. I could tell they would've loved to go in and try their hand at it, but unfortunately their contract wouldn't let them fight against campers. They did get in on the betting, though.

Hal Dolent got the closest to winning out of all of them. He used his powers to actually put Percy to sleep, and I could see the guy snoring away on his feet. Hal would've choked him out and been done with it if Percy's fist hadn't pounded his head right down to the ground anyway. The sound of skull hitting stone woke Percy up with a start, and the poor Hypnos kid got dragged out of the ring, unconscious.

Mei Lou was stepping up to the plate when someone sat down next to me. And… Okay…

This guy's a sore spot for some of us older campers. You gotta understand that we trained together for years. We fought and bled together. We ate and laughed and played together. The ones around my age looked up to him like an older brother. Percy too. Especially Percy.

Alright… As I was saying, Luke Castellan sat down next to me, with my half-sister Annabeth on his heels like usual. She looked a little worn out, and the jacket she had on was a bit dusty, so I'm guessing the only reason she wasn't taking a break at the cabin was because of all the commotion. Luke's eyes were on Percy, who'd just gotten started on his newest challenger. There was interest there, maybe a little too much, looking back on it.

"Hey Malcolm, nice to see you down here for once."

I bit back a retort, mostly because he had a point. I didn't make a habit of going to the arena if I didn't absolutely have to. At least I didn't just skip out like _some_ people.

Annabeth waved at me, and I nodded back, glad to see her. I hadn't seen her since the last summer, but neither of us was big on small talk, so that was good enough. She also gave me a look, and I knew there was something she wanted to talk about from the way she stared. Probably would've just chatted away if we hadn't been around so many people.

"There's a lot of excitement today," Luke said, and man, I have to praise the guy's acting skills, going about it so casually. I don't know exactly when he started recruiting, but it had to have been around that time, maybe a little before. Running into someone like Percy so soon must've been like hitting the jackpot. "Who's that little guy there?"

Well, lucky for him, he'd found the best person in camp to ask. "Percy Jackson," I said. A shoe came flying at us, and we had to duck out of the way. Sonder Heathler walked up the stands to get it, her face red, Percy's laugh following after her. "He's… a unique case."

"No kidding. Never seen powers like _that_ before."

He was obviously fishing, but I had no reason to think that, so the info just came out of me. I guess I'd been waiting for a chance to just spill everything I'd learned over the past few days.

So that's what I did. I told them every single thing, from what they could clearly see Percy doing with their own eyes to his unusual resistance to ambrosia overdose. Annabeth took it all in with the same detachment I've gotten used to from her, while Luke put in the effort to whistle, and I don't think it was even an act.

I also made sure to cut back on the praise, because again, I was probably the only one in camp who knew what he was talking about when it came to Percy Jackson. "Watch out for him, though, he's completely crazy," I said. "Like, psycho-levels of crazy. Like, laughing while going on a murder-spree crazy."

You know, maybe I wasn't being that fair, but in my defense, I'd been hanging around the guy for way too long to start off with. That, and neither Luke or Annabeth took me seriously there.

Eventually, someone from the crowd below finally peeled their eyes away from the massacre long enough to notice the reigning champ sitting by me. "Oh, hey, Luke! Come over here and show this kid what's what!" one of them said. The call got taken up, and soon enough people stopped stepping into the ring with Percy, content enough to let mister swordsman of the ages handle it from there.

While Luke tried to wave off the requests in that oh so friendly manner of his, I saw Percy crouch down and talk to the camper who's back he was currently stepping on. Then, eyes settling on Luke, his smile widened, and it wasn't all that hard for me to figure out how _that_ conversation went. Maybe something like:

"Psst. Hey, who's Luke?"

"He's the champion of the arena, you jackass."

"Oh. So, is he strong, or is he like you?"

"What are you— ugh! He's the strongest guy in camp! Get off me already!"

And that must've inspired that happy look I saw Percy send our way. I think his teeth were getting pointier, even, or maybe that's just me projecting.

Luke sighed, grabbing the sword he'd leaned up against the wall behind him, but Annabeth laid her hand on his shoulder, forcing him back down. Clicking her tongue, she walked down the steps. On her she had a small knife strapped to her leg, and her Yankees cap folded into her belt.

"He's not crazy, Malcolm," she said, and for the first time, I felt like praying for Percy. He might've scared me on an implicit level, the same way I'm scared of disease, or overpopulation. Dangerous, but not something that's actively out for your life. Annabeth? I love her to death, but she can be fucking _terrifying_. Disease and overpopulation can be treated, but there's nothing you can do if a sabretooth cat jumps at you from the bushes other than hope it goes for the jugular and makes it quick.

And that's exactly what she was, calmly stepping down, parting the crowd in her wake like freaking Moses, except she didn't need a staff, just her eyes. Grey sheets of steel that said one thing: _move, or I will move you._

If Percy was disappointed, he didn't let it show. When Annabeth stopped right across form him, he waved at her, finally letting the poor sap trapped under his foot scramble out of the way. "Hi! I'm Percy Jackson. How are you?"

"I'm fine," she said.

"You sure don't _look_ fine. Something wrong?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Uh, okay, what's your deal?"

Oh, Percy. You fool.

"There's a fly bothering me," she said, slipping her jacket off.

"Um… alright?" For once, Percy didn't know what else to say.

Annabeth grabbed her cap. "Don't worry, I'm just about to deal with it."

She threw her jacket at him. The thing hit Percy dead in the face, wrapping around his head, making him stumble back in surprise. He ripped it away, tossing it off to the side, but it was too late. Annabeth was gone.

Now on high alert, Percy looked around him, hands clenched and arms ready to swing. But just as soon as it started, it was over. A knife popped into view by his throat, the edge touching skin. It being Annabeth's, it wasn't blunted. The rest of her was visible too, her hand on the back of his neck, her face impassive.

Percy didn't dare turn to see her, but his dilated pupils did shoot to the edges of his eyes. He wasn't smiling anymore. "That's new…" His breath was a bit shaky, understandably. Anyone would be just as shocked by a surprise pre-assassination.

Annabeth kept it simple. "I win," she said, and that was that.

… Except, not for Percy it wasn't. A grin split his face once again, and he turned to look at her with the same confidence he'd used to beat half the people in the crowd. "It's not gonna be that easy," he said, right to her face.

Her eyebrows raised by a nanometer, and I saw that Annabeth struggled to get her knife to move out of its place by Percy's throat. Almost experimentally, she let it go, and we all saw as it hung there, locked in the air, like it was frozen in time.

"Huh."

Annabeth then proceeded to kick Percy's knees out from under him and put him in an arm lock in less time than you can say 'whoops.' She stabbed her own knee into the small of his back, putting her weight on him and straining his arm over her shoulder. "It was slightly harder than I thought it'd be, I'll give you that," she said.

There was a big 'ooooh!' from the crowd, as you would expect, and Percy's good mood was thoroughly wiped off his face.

"Ow ow ow ow! Oi, let me go!" he said.

Annabeth raised his arm a little further, and his head smacked against the floor with another cry. "Interesting. You haven't thrown me off with your powers yet. Can't you concentrate like this?" she raised it more.

"I… I can see the light!"

"Say uncle."

"What?"

"Say uncle and I'll stop."

"Uncle!" There was no hesitation, which I guess speaks for itself.

She let him go, to the cheer of the crowd. There were some laughs, some snide remarks, some grudging grumblings of respect, money was exchanged, and just like that, everyone went back to whatever it was they were doing. Half the group straight up walked out of the Chamber, and I could feel myself breathe freely again. It's hard to notice how much space something takes up until it's gone.

Her job done, Annabeth made her way back up to us, reaching down for her jacket and knife on the way. Percy rolled into a seat on the floor, looking up at her with something like wonder. "How'd you do that?" he asked.

She didn't turn around, but she did stop in her tracks, a hand on her hip, like the question had tired her out more than the fight itself. "I've learned that everyone's stupid in their own special way," she said. Her voice was dull, like she'd rehearsed the line a hundred times in her head, but my gut told me she didn't have to, because it's _Annabeth_ we're talking about. Her brain is like a pond of ideas and facts and beliefs, and she was born a pro fisherman; someone like that doesn't need to rehearse anything. "You're stupid in the way that you can't see anything unless it's right in front of you. I'm not really about slugfests, so I guess you could say I was a bad matchup for you."

Wise words. Too bad it all went over Percy's head. "… How'd you do that again?"

Annabeth sighed, bringing up her baseball cap and showing it to him behind her back. "This hat is magic. It lets me turn invisible if I put it on. Everything after that was basic judo even a baby could learn."

"So… you cheated."

Oh man, that's when I saw it. The vein popping on her forehead. It's one of my more personally underrated moments, so I make sure to look back every once in a while and really appreciate it. Finally, I had an ally in this battle.

"If you can't handle me," she said, her tone clipped, "then don't think you can take on our best."

And this wasn't just your regular ally against Percy. Annabeth was an invaluable asset; the only one capable of shutting the man down with a single sentence. I almost gave her a standing ovation right then and there.

"Let's go," she told Luke and I, making for the Chamber's exit, and you know what? I'm not afraid to admit that the both of us immediately stood and followed after her. Her ire wasn't targeted at us, but we were still caught in its periphery. It felt like the whole damn Chamber could sense it, actually. Maybe it was just me, but I swear you could've heard a pin drop, and the people practicing their forms over by the corner were taking things a bit _too_ slow, like the lack of movement could keep them innocent.

For all my bullshit, I did feel a little bad about just leaving Percy there, on the ground, for once looking like he was putting some thought into things. I mean, I'd been with the guy for the better part of a week now, so I _suppose_ , if you're really stretching, you could say he was starting to grow on me. A _little_.

But hey, we all have our own lives. At least, that's what I told myself when Luke and I walked down the stands to fall in step with Annabeth. Never one to let others get the last word in, Percy spoke up right before we could cross the archway.

"If everyone has a way… that counts you too, right? How are _you_ stupid?"

This time she did turn to look at him. Stone-cold met inquisitive, and finding that it wasn't meant as an insult, Annabeth decided to be honest. "There's an exception to every rule," she said, then walked off like a boss. I refuse to believe she didn't rehearse _that_ one.

In a way, you could say she did answer his question.

Our walk out of the arena and up to Thalia's tree wasn't all that eventful. Annabeth just told us that there was something important she had to talk to us about. She sounded so serious about it that it was hard to fill in the silence. Luke and I tried, but that ship was sinking fast, so eventually we just stopped trying.

…. Jeez, I guess Annabeth was a real party pooper back in the day, huh? I mean, damn, that's a _twelve-year-old_ I'm describing. Goes to show how shit her life was before all that. Or how un-shit everyone else's was in comparison? Either way, it's gotta be a real shit sandwich to win the shit awards in Camp Half-Blood, but she was definitely in the running.

"Alright, what's up, Annabeth?" I said when we got there, more than a little anxious about the whole thing. It felt like some kind of secret spy meeting or something, so far away from other campers.

She leaned on Thalia, her fingers spreading around the wood, closing her eyes and just breathing it in. I guess she found some comfort in it, being so close to her friend.

"Have you noticed how cloudy it's been the past couple of weeks?" she asked.

I looked to Luke, I guess in an attempt to do that thing from the movies where two people look at each other all confused, but he kept his face straight. Then, just a half second too late, his eyebrows shot up, and he said, "Huh, now that you mention it…"

My eyes followed his to stare at the sky, and soon enough we were all looking up like a bunch of jackasses. "I guess it's weird. What's the big deal though? It's probably just some kind of…" I trailed off, because, when I really thought about it, I had no idea what to compare it to. It _had_ been a long while since I'd seen any open sky, and hey, it was the same thing back at Quint, hadn't it? "… Hold on, it's been like that here too? All that time?"

Annabeth nodded, and Luke was still looking up, like he was still trying to piece things together. "I asked some others too," she said. "Roland. Gabriella. Pollux? It's the same in Florida, and Texas, and Oregon."

"That's pretty much all over the country," Luke said.

"Yeah, and you know what's even stranger? I haven't seen anyone make a fuss about it. News channels, scientists, people online… Even people here. It's like no one's paying attention to it." I could tell it was getting to her a little, her forehead creasing together the slightest bit. "I asked Chiron about it a few days ago, but he just told me it wasn't anything to get worried over."

"I'm guessing you didn't believe him."

"Obviously not. I've been with the Oracle for the past couple of days."

That explained why she'd looked tired. That walk is a killer on your feet.

And man, the _Oracle_. Not a lot of people go see her. Hell, _I've_ never gone to see her. Makes sense, I guess. It's a bit disappointing when you find out that she won't just drop a prophecy on your lap like in the stories. See, now _that's_ a part in the myths that got exaggerated. I can't even blame whoever wrote them, though, because I have no clue how the hell I'd write the Oracle either. Annabeth tried explaining it to me at one point, and it was way more convoluted than what you can get away with in an epic poem about some Rambo looking dude mowing down monsters.

You know, there's the whole image of some scantily-clad lady hopped up on volcano fumes telling you a rhyme about your future, but that's a bunch of bullshit. If you're the Oracle, it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you can see the future. Well, it _does_ , but not like _that_ , you know? Hrm…

Alright, just think of it like this: One day, someone really _really_ smart is born. Smart enough that they can look at life, something about having more eyes, and there's an infinite network… Um, something something Friedrich Nietzsche. To be honest, I don't really get the details, but I'm assuming they're something like Neo when he takes the red pill and wakes up from the Matrix. Imagine that times a hundred, and that's pretty much the Oracle.

But the important part about this is that if Annabeth was going to the effort of going to the _Oracle_ for answers, things were probably serious. The hairs in the back of my head were frozen in attention. "What'd she say?" I asked.

"A lot. But the short of it was this…" she paused, for dramatic effect of course. "The gods are quiet."

"The gods… are quiet?"

She nodded, a hand coming up to hold her head. Maybe she had a migraine after thinking over all this stuff. "I've been praying to mom constantly these past few days, and there's been _nothing_."

"Sounds about right," Luke muttered, and Annabeth just sighed, giving him a look of infinite patience. "… sorry. So, how big do you think this is?"

Annabeth ruminated on that, her head bouncing lightly off and on Thalia's trunk, like maybe the ideas could get sucked out of there and into her brain. "I think Chiron's lying to me. There's no way he wouldn't know if something's up, right? And something's definitely up in Olympus."

"Pretty big then."

"Big enough to have the gods cut themselves off _completely_ from the mortal world. As for the weather we've been having lately… there's only one of them I know about who'd do something like that."

A tense silence followed, because we too knew about that certain god, and suddenly the whole country getting covered in storm clouds didn't sound too good for the general populace. I had a hard time looking up after coming to that conclusion. "What can _we_ do about it?" I asked after a while, just when the possibilities playing themselves out in my head were getting a little too dark even for my tastes.

"I don't even know what's going on," Annabeth said. Then, she smiled, and I knew that smile. It was the same one I'd caught on her for the smallest moment right before she went down the stands to fight Percy. The smile of someone who thought they already won before the fight even started. "… But I know about people who do."

Then she turned to me. I gulped. "Jubilee's still happening, right?" she asked.

"As far as I know, yeah."

"And you're still friends with that Katie girl, right?"

I was smart enough to know where this was going. "As… far as I know, yeah…"

"Good. I'm gonna need you to ask her for a favor."

Jubilee. An event of epic proportions that only comes around every ten years. Also something that didn't allow the presence of any mortal who wasn't a child of Demeter, and even then, only barely. At least, that's how it was before they changed the rules. Yeah… let's just say, that year's Jubilee was one for the ages.

* * *

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	6. Book 2, Act 3

I was standing there, in front of the Demeter Cabin, ready to knock. Or getting ready to anyway. I kept telling my hand to just tap on the door and get it over with, but it wasn't listening to me. My mouth was dry, and I kept staring at the knob, almost expecting someone to turn it from inside and walk out to see me shuffling a dent into their porch.

"Talk to her," Annabeth had said. "Try to convince her to let you go. Trick her into telling you where it is. Do whatever you have to do to make it to Jubilee. If anyone knows what's going on up on Olympus, it'll be an Olympian."

I hadn't been a big fan of the idea. "I'd rather not…"

She had looked at me like what she said was only obvious. "I'm not expecting Demeter to spill everything, but she might give something away if you ask why they've cut contact with their kids." Seeing that wasn't working, she added, "Demeter's supposedly one of the nicer ones, so it shouldn't be anything to worry about."

It wasn't. That's not what I was worrying about in the first place. "… You sure you don't wanna take this? I mean, I'm sure you'd do a better job of convincing Katie than I would."

"Of course not. I barely know her. And anyway I have to stay here and drill Chiron for more info." Her eyes left mine, and I found that I could breathe a little easier. For as smart as she was, it looked like Annabeth wasn't particularly good at catching the signs.

Luke wasn't as oblivious. "Yeah, Malcolm, we're not _friends_ with Katie like you are," he said, wagging his eyebrows at me.

I could feel the red crawling up my neck. Annabeth saw it too, and hell, she wasn't _blind_. "Oh, you like her," she said, like she'd just read it off a textbook. "Isn't that even better? Now you have an excuse to talk to her."

Like it was that easy. I thought, maybe Annabeth should get a piece of her own medicine. "Sure, I guess I'll just go and leave _you two_ alone."

Then it was her turn to blush, but I didn't have the time to congratulate myself on that bit of social maneuvering, because now I could feel the energy from her reddening skin being used to vaporize me through her eyes.

"Don't tell her what might be happening," she said, every word adding another layer of frost. "This could all blow over on its own, so we don't want to cause a panic. Now leave."

I left immediately.

And, you know, it was the memory of Annabeth's contained wrath that scared me into finally knocking. I thought, maybe if I did what she asked, her payback wouldn't be as bad as what I had in mind.

It was only after then, when I could hear the murmurs and footsteps from inside, that I looked at the fields around the cabin. I realized that Katie might not be inside at all, but out working in the grapevines, or pulling out weeds in the wheat. I'd have to explain wanting to see her to some random Demeter schmuck, and then I'd look like some kind of stalker weirdo or something, and God knew how Katie might react to _that_. My heart started beating faster. I felt sweat slide down my neck. I thought, fuck, I'm fucked! I gotta get outta here!

I am _so_ glad I'm not twelve anymore. Twelve-year-olds have _no_ chill. Uh, no offense.

The door opened, and to both my relief and horror, Katie was the one who stared at me from across the entrance. Relief because now my imagination wasn't giving me anxiety, and horror because reality was more than willing to take over. Behind her, I saw a few other campers sitting around some desks, looking over stacks of paper and folders. At least, they had been before the door opened. By then they were looking my way, probably wondering what this random kid was doing interrupting their work.

Katie took a while to react, but she did crack a smile at seeing me, so I figured that was a good sign. "Oh, hey Mal. What's up?" she said, waving off her half siblings, who went back to whatever it was they were doing.

I noticed the bags under her eyes. It made me feel bad, even if it wasn't my fault. "Hi Katie. I, uh… gotta talk to you about something."

"Uh-huh?"

"Well, Jubilee's coming up, right?"

"… Yup."

"Well, I was wondering if I could… uh…"

By then, Katie was staring at me, impatient. At least, that's what I thought she was doing. I was looking down at my feet the whole time, so it was kinda hard to tell.

"Mal, just tell me already."

"CanIcometoJubileewithyouguys?"

I spat it out as fast as I could, but somehow she still caught it, thank God, because I'm not sure I could've said it again. I did finally raise my head to meet her eyes, or at least the spot right between her eyes, and I saw that she was more than a bit confused.

"What? No. Of course not," she said, and a part of me was actually relieved. I figured that now I could go to Annabeth, tell her I tried everything I could, and that'd be the end of it.

With that thought in mind, I raised a hand, gave her a smile, said, "Cool, well thanks anyway," and turned around to leave. Mid-step, her hand came to rest on my shoulder, and that stopped me cold. Even with a shirt between us, I could still feel the glow in my chest. I was still smiling, but it became strained, like my face had just frozen with it on and now it couldn't do anything to take it off.

"Wait wait wait." She turned me around, twisting me on the heel of my foot, and then put her other hand on my shoulder. "What's going on, Malcolm? Why do you wanna come in the first place?"

I started jittering, but then my eyes trailed just behind her to the other Demeter kids, who were scowling over at us, and I forced myself to gulp down the blush. "… Does it matter?" I said, trying to sound calm, but my voice broke at the end.

Katie looked back at her half-siblings, who looked away just as fast, and I swear I could hear one of them whistling, the bastard. She hooked her foot on the side of the door and pulled it closed. Then, she looked back at me a new light coming to her eyes like she saw something in mine she hadn't noticed before, and I was still smiling like an idiot, even though the entire time I was telling myself, stop! Stop smiling, you fool!

"Malcolm, I'm gonna be honest," she said. "You're being a weirdo right now. You know that, right?" I nodded immediately, and only after did my brain catch up with what I was doing, and I stopped. "Yeah, you know. Look, I think you're cool and everything, but… Well, I don't like you. I mean, I like you, but not like _that_. So if you're looking to try anything…"

Man. I'm sorry guys, just hold on. I gotta take a break here. Jesus.

…

Alright. I'm good. I'm good, swear to God. Fuck me. It's been years, guys. _Years_. The awkwardness still haunts me to this day.

And it was awkward for Katie too, obviously. She was looking away now, and her hands were at her sides. "Look," she said, "we can still be _friends_ and everything—"

"No!" I shouted, arms out, now understanding where she was going with this. My whole body was on fire, and I could feel the sweat down to my ankles. "I mean, not _no_ like… I mean, it doesn't have anything to do with _that_. I don't… like you. That's not part of it."

"Oh." Katie breathed deep, then smiled at me. She started laughing, hands on her hips, head thrown back. "Oh okay! Good!"

Ouch. Anyway, I was home-free, and it doesn't even matter anymore, so I guess I can't complain about it now.

But I wasn't out of the woods just yet. Katie looked back at me, as comfortable as ever now. "Then what's up? You wouldn't come by if it wasn't for something important, probably."

"What makes you say that?"

"You've never come by at all, Mal."

I'll admit, that stumped me. And, you know, with that whole situation right before, I was more than a little off my game. So, I kinda spilled everything. Yeah, yeah, sue me. I knew even while I was doing it that Annabeth would kill me if she ever found out, and believe me, I made sure to tell Katie about _that_ particular detail.

What do you mean I'm not very good at keeping secrets? I can keep secrets. I know it doesn't look like a very good track record right now, but come on, those were extenuating circumstances. I had to distract from her almost finding out about me… you know. Give me a break, alright?

By the end of my story, she and I were sitting on the Demeter cabin porch. They had a couple chairs out there, made of wood and cushioned with straw pillows. They weren't all that comfortable.

Katie was looking up at the cloud barrier above us, a finger on her lip. "I guess it _has_ been a while since I saw the sky be normal," she said. "And if it's Annabeth worrying about it… Hrm…"

Everyone knew Annabeth was possibly the most on-top-of-things person in the whole camp. She'd won the Athena cabin so many capture-the-flag games by then that I'd already lost count. It was her who Chiron usually came to with any concerns he had about anything on camp.

I mean, the girl wasn't infallible—she'd missed the Luke thing like everyone else—but people sure took her seriously. Her word was probably the best way into Jubilee I had.

But despite all that, and despite the fact that Katie herself had mentioned the Demeter cabin not hearing much from their mom even with Jubilee right around the corner, she shook her head. "Sorry, Malcolm, but I don't think you can come. The whole camp would if it was up to us, but Clover's being real strict with the rules this time around. Demeter and Dionysus kids only, and even then, it's probably just because our parents happen to be going."

"What's up with all that anyway?" I said, by then calm. "It didn't use to be like that, right? I thought anyone could go back in the day."

Katie narrowed her eyes. She looked around her, then leaned in. It made me lean in too, my own eyes glancing back and forth. "Don't tell anyone I told you this, but the satyrs haven't been all that happy lately. Notice how there aren't that many of them around?"

It was only then that I did notice it. My first year at camp, there'd been plenty of satyrs all over the place. They came by to eat with campers. They trained with us. Some of them even doubled as instructors. My second year, I'd seen that some had stopped coming by as often, but I'd figured they were just busy. That summer? I'd yet to see even one after two whole days.

"I guess so. Something wrong?"

"No one knows for sure," Katie said. She was frowning, and I could tell she was frustrated. Her finger kept scratching at the chipped wood of her armrest. "People say they've been locking themselves in. Figured it was because Jubilee's coming up, but even then, camp isn't that far away. All the ones on demigod watch have been quitting. Bree too."

Bree was the camp herbalist. She was a nymph who used to teach campers about which plants where safe to eat, which were poisonous, that kind of stuff. She'd been working at camp for half a century.

That was enough to get me frowning too. "That's weird."

"Tell me about it. The worst part is, no one can get any word from them aside from Chris, and I'm guessing that's only because he's our cabin head." She leaned back on her seat. "It's _too_ weird, and I got a bad feeling about it. I don't know what kind of trouble you could get into if you came with us."

I had a bad feeling too, and not just because of the way Clover was acting. They're playing isolationist now, when the sky's covered up, right before Jubilee. I also knew that the Summer Solstice was coming up, and the Olympians always had a big meeting then. There were too many things going on at the same time. It was more than a little suspicious.

I stood up, an idea growing in my head. I already knew that Annabeth wouldn't like it, but without showing the fear of that on my face, I motioned to Katie. "Come on. I have an idea."

After giving the other Demeter kids some bogey excuse, Katie followed me all the way across camp to the Athena cabin. More specifically, the Hootings Library, where I knew I'd find Annabeth for sure. And I was right; we found her sitting in an aisle, reading from _Zeus' Tantrums Across History_ by an unnamed author—a smart choice, to stay anonymous. Several other books were spread before her on a table, at least five or six, among stacks of notes scrawled with miniscule handwriting.

The moment she saw us, her eyes went from mine, to Katie's, and back to mine. Her face was completely humorless as she closed the book shut. "You told her," she said.

"Annabeth—"

"I guess I should've expected it." Annabeth sighed, laying the book down on the table on top of the stack.

"I know you're mad—"

"Oh, I'm mad."

"Yeah, but—"

"You know how dangerous it is to be going around telling people about it."

"I—"

"If it's something the gods don't want us knowing about, I can't—"

"Will you just let him talk, already?"

That came from Katie. We both turned to look at her, and Annabeth met her glare with the same clinical face she would anyone else. I saw the standoff between them, thinking about backing off, feeling the sparks starting to shoot off where their eyes met. Then, Annabeth leaned back on her seat, gesturing across from her.

"Tell me, then."

Katie and I sat down, and immediately, as if it was choreographed, all three of us leaned forward onto the table, elbows propping up our hands.

"Look, sorry about telling Katie," I said, "but it's fine. It's actually better like this. You've noticed the way Clover's acting, right?"

Annabeth stared at me for aa good bit, then nodded. "I thought it was a little strange, but now that you mention it, all this at the same time feels pretty off."

"Exactly! Katie, tell her what you told me."

So she did. Katie told Annabeth about all the weird happenings with the satyrs and the forest spirits. By the end of it, Annabeth's frown was well on its way, and her hands had come together in a knot, covering the bottom half of her face in a classic thinking pose.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, looking at me.

I smiled. "Well, it looks to me like we have two things to deal with now. Find out whatever's going on in Olympus, and find out whatever's going on in Clover. I figured Katie could take over the first part; I mean, she's gotta talk to her mom at some point, right?" I looked at her to make sure, and she nodded, though there was a pause right before. I didn't let it bother me, though. I was on a roll now. "Yeah. Katie can ask Demeter, or at least try to get something out of her. She's her kid, so it'd feel more natural coming from her anyway. But for Clover? I'm not sure she'll have the time with Jubilee. You'll be pretty busy, all things considered." Katie nodded again. "So we need someone to go in and try to find out why they're acting so weird. There's gotta be a _reason_ , right? And I'm guessing they won't tell the campers while you're there."

"You want to sneak in," Annabeth said.

"And how're you gonna do that?" Katie said. We both looked at her, just kinda staring. "… Oh! Right. Me. Okay."

"You don't mind helping out?" I said, because it occurred to me that I'd gone and made the plan without thinking to ask for permission.

Katie shrugged. "I'm starting to see that you're gonna go through with this no matter what, right?" I had to look away, because she was right. The situation was definitely serious as far as I knew, but honestly, a part of me was more thrilled about it all than I wanted to admit. It felt good to be doing something that sounded so heroic. "Thought so. Well, if you're doing it anyway, I might as well make sure you don't get in as much trouble as you could."

I would've thanked her if I hadn't been left so speechless by the fact that this girl who I hardly knew was willing to stick her neck out for me in the biggest event of her camp life. Thankfully, Annabeth was aware enough to take over for me.

"You sure?" she said, arms crossed. "Jubilee's only every ten years. You won't get another chance at it if something goes wrong."

"Hey, it's not just for you guys that I'm doing this," Katie said. The illusion was broken, and suddenly I found that I'd been staring at her rather intently for a bit longer than anyone would consider normal. I coughed and looked away. "I wanna know what's going on over there too. I'm worried about the satyrs and the nymphs and everyone else. And I miss them."

Annabeth and I looked at each other, and just like that, I knew she was convinced. Leave it to her to trust in other people wanting to help themselves. "Alright," she said, "got any ideas on how to bring Malcolm without anyone finding out, then?"

Katie sat in thought for a while, then snapped her fingers. "We're going on busses. Two of them. Chris is in charge of one, and Abbey's in charge of the other, and they'll both be at the door taking names down, so that's a no go. But," here she smiled, "I'm part of the baggage crew. All the bags are going under the bus, and it's something we have to open from outside. I can probably sneak you in there when everyone's in their seats, and then sneak you out when we get there." Then, her eyes widened, and she sat back, frowning. "I don't know what to do after that though. All the campers are getting a tour, but if you go with us people would know. And we're all getting paired up for rooms, so you couldn't stay with me."

Annabeth didn't waste even a second. "I know someone who could help," she said. For a second, her eyes looked wistful, like she'd left us for that brief moment and gone somewhere else, somewhere far away from camp and even the person she was right in front of us. Her face softened, and for the first time I saw her not as Annabeth Chase, head of the Athena cabin, but as a girl who'd at one point been _normal_. Then, the weight came back. Her shoulders straightened. Her eyes hardened, and it took me a second to recognize that they were now what I'd grown used to from her. "His name's Grover. I'll give you a letter from me to him. He'll help you, for sure." Then, she turned to Katie. "And who was your roommate there again?"

"Lia Romack. Know her?"

"Yeah. Lia's nice. We'll have to deal with her."

I won't bore you with details. We sat there for a good two hours, ironing out the rest of the plan down to the most miniscule point. By the end of it, we were all feeling pretty confident. Katie waved at us as she went to her shift at the camp store, and I went my own way to the Stolls for the last bit of preparation we'd need. Annabeth promised to have something out of Chiron by the time we came back. All was well.

Except, there isn't any way to think of everything. There was no way for us to know, for example, that while we were busy making our plan as iron-tight as possible, Percy was halfway across camp, hearing about Jubilee from Castor Lang. There was no way for us to know that the possibility of seeing the biggest tree in North America, along with all the nature spirits that lived in it, would make him want to go too. But maybe we shouldn't have been so sure that our plan was so good that no one else could think of it.

* * *

Malcolm sighed, leaning back to bask a bit in the fire. The people around him, once three and now a good dozen, groaned as he became silent.

"Oh come on! You're just getting to the good part!" said Fletcher, son of Apollo.

Asia, daughter of Aphrodite, nudged him on the arm. "We still have," she looked out the broken window, and saw the churning black clouds, the leaves and newspapers and plastic backs being carried by the stormy winds, "uh, I don't know. Probably enough time?"

Malcolm turned to her with a tired smile. "You're kidding, right? Don't you all feel that?"

Just like that, the group became silent. They all knew what he was talking about—a zap going up and down their spines, the goosebumps on their skin, and the subtle spark in the back of their heads. It's the same that happened anytime they were close to a monster, but the strangeness came in how the feeling had been there for what had to be hours now. It had been growing stronger by the second, and now it was so strong that, if they weren't all sitting down, they wouldn't be able to stop themselves from pacing, or running, or swinging their arms, or doing _anything_ to release all the energy.

"Yeah," Malcolm said. "I'm right there with you. It's happening soon."

They all sat, quiet, listening to the wind bellow against the walls, wailing as it passed by, smothering the crackling of the fire. Through the door, they heard feet stamping over wooden floors, over and over, the other campers scrambling like mice through the building.

Then, a horn sounded off, rattling the bits of glass on the floor, shaking the walls. The deep sound came again, and then a third time. All throughout, Malcolm saw that everyone had their eyes down, their swords and axes and sickles and whatever else they had held tightly in their hands.

Next to him, Asia was trembling. Eyes trailing across the group, he saw that they all were. It made him sad, to think that these children, all as old as he'd been back then, would have to fight for their lives. _And I'm not much older. Not really_ , he thought, and despite himself a chuckle broke through. There was no humor in it.

But this was the demigod life. A constant battle for survival, whether they liked it or not.

"That's enough story time," he said, getting up from his seat, an upturned box. He walked across the desolate room, empty and broken and dirtied as it was, and reached the door. "Sounds like everyone's getting set up. You should all get back to your stations."

He opened the door, then stood there, looking back at them. "Well?" he asked, and when they all looked up at him, he nudged his head out the room. "No use staying here, right?"

They stood. It was a hard thing for most, their bodies heavy with fear, shoulders slumped, faces down. One by one, they began marching out of the room, some saying goodbye to Malcolm, others thanking him for the stories, and yet others saying nothing, looking lost. Like they didn't know what had brought them there in the first place, and had only now realized it.

Asia was the last one. She walked up to him, biting her lip. "If…" she started, then something seemed to catch in her throat.

Malcolm shook his head. "No ifs here. Don't think about it." She kept standing there, unable to meet his gaze, and he sighed. "Hey, it's gonna be fine. Promise. We'll make it through this, and then if you want I'll finish the story later. Alright?"

Asia nodded, finally looking up. Malcolm saw that her eyes were wet, but no tears had fallen. _Good,_ he thought. _Strong._ _That's good._

"Can you at least tell me how it ends?" she said. "With Percy, I mean. What happens to him? The really last thing that happens."

"The _really_ last thing?" he asked, and she nodded again. He put a hand to his chin. "Well… Percy ended up saving the Olympians. He didn't like it, but he figured it was better than letting the world end. Then, he heard that his friends were in trouble. So he came to Elory as fast as possible, and since he'd been here before, and he knew where it was, he got here soon. But when he did, he saw that his friends had already won. He laughed, and they all had a big party to celebrate. Then they all went back home to camp, and lived happy ever after. The end." He smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder. "See? These things usually have a happy ending."

"You're the worst," Asia said, but she was smiling now, if only a little, and Malcolm laughed.

"I've been told," he said. He patted her shoulder. "Come on. Let's do some heroing."

Asia walked ahead, and then turned the corner, gone. Now alone, Malcolm let himself go slack, looking back at the empty room. His face wearied, and he leaned against the doorframe. He rubbed his eyes.

"Percy, I swear to God, wherever you are, you better get your ass over here," he said. The words came out with his breath, exasperated.

And then he followed after the rest. Because even if he was exhausted, and scared, and a bit hopeless, he still had a job to do. That was the demigod life too. A job. One he'd been given at birth, but that he'd only come to accept much later. Sometimes he loved it, and other times he loathed it. But a job was a job, and if he didn't do it, no one else would for him.

That day, in the ruins of what was the Hidden City of Elroy, one thousand Greek demigods made their last stand against the forces of evil. They did this in the hopes that they could hold out long enough for Percy Jackson, who they'd all decided to place their faith in, got there. But Percy Jackson's fate took him away from the battle, and away from it his fate would have him stay.

Fate. Chosen or unchosen, it nevertheless drives the world, throwing people flailing into the river of time. This is the story of those who swim against the current, and those who allow themselves to be carried by it, down to the delta and into the great ocean of destiny. And this is the story of that man who fought with everything he had to keep that river flowing.

Idle reader, wage the worth of these heroes. Take it on your own shoulders, as they did, and decide for yourself: is it better to swim or to float? To close the door, or open it? To be responsible for oneself, or for others? The decision is yours, but allow yourself to make it at the story's closing, for wisdom rushed is no wisdom gained.

 **PROLOGUE END**

* * *

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	7. Book 3, Act 1

**BOOK THREE: THE FLOWER OF PROMISE**

* * *

One more well versed in the art of story would call upon the muses, or the gods, or perhaps even the holy spirit. I, however, will do none of these things, for to think that these great powers could ever enter into my faulty self is the height of arrogance. My own spirit will therefore need to grow, and fly on its own. I beseech you, idle reader, to hold onto your patience, and to show mercy to this flawed writer, who will fail time and again regardless of his many attempts.

Our story begins in daytime, with three satyrs standing beside a bus. They'd seen the visiting demigods get out some minutes before, all of them led by one of their tour nymphs into the Hoof. Even now, they remembered the faces of those children; the wonder in them, eyes trailing up to see the thing casting them all in shadow.

It made the satyrs sick.

Hypocrisy of the highest degree. They pumped the air full of carbon, coming in their _buses_. They drank from their water bottles, cut down trees for their paper. They littered the forests with their aluminum cans and used napkins. Then they had the audacity to be impressed at all they were destroying?

These feelings and more had entered these satyrs when they watched those demigods. To the point that, when the visitors began to make plans as to their luggage, the satyrs had intervened. Insisted on bringing it themselves. _Don't worry about it,_ they'd said, wringing their hands. _We'll bring your stuff up, no problem. It's our job to welcome you properly, after all._

There'd been some complaints, of course. The visitors tried to be polite. Didn't want to impose. But the satyrs saw the relief, too. The slacking of their shoulders. The slight upturn of their lips. So it was easy enough to convince them.

All except one. A girl, young, hair colored like soft dirt. She'd become rather problematic, so they'd allowed her to take her own bag up with her. A rolling suitcase, and a large one at that, big enough for her to fit in if she'd wanted to. She'd been too insistent for the satyrs, not leaving the matter alone, so they'd allowed her that sole exception. Even now, she toured the Hoof with her suitcase rolling along behind her.

Well. That was all fine anyway. The rest of the luggage was right there in the two buses. All that was left was figuring out what to do with it. Just thinking about the possibilities made the satyrs smile wide, eyes glinting darkly.

Then, another satyr came by. This one was younger than the rest, twitching nervously, face uncertain. He rode a gigantopod, the giant snails used to get up and down the Hoof, friends of satyrs for millennia. The three satyrs watched as the other one rode across to the stable a ways away, and their plan came into fruition, because they knew this new satyr by his appearance and conduct.

"Grover!" one of the satyrs bleated. His hands were up to his mouth, like a town crier. "Grover, get over here!"

Grover heard the shout. He turned around on his saddle, pointed at himself, questioning. The three satyrs nodded, smiling, waving him down. So he turned the gigantopod, coming back towards them, a slimy trail of snail saliva marking his tracks.

"W-What's going on, guys?" Grover asked once he neared them. His hands were tapping nervously on the reins. He'd very rarely gotten called out by the other satyrs in Clover, after all. It was hard for him to make friends, and harder still for friends to make themselves present to him. His eyes shot to each of the three satyrs, finding them older and, by their horns, more distinguished in their organization.

"Help us out with something will ya?" one of the satyrs said. The other two went over to the buses, opening the undersides where the luggage lay. They began tossing the bags and suitcases to the ground before them, building up a pile. It was rough, the luggage coming down hard on the dirt and kicking up dust each time. They didn't care to know if they broke anything—hoped for it, actually.

"Um… sure? Y-You guys need some help brining all this up?" Grover asked. His face was sweating.

"No, nothing like that!"

The pile was a mound now. Bags on top of bags, suitcases on top of suitcases. Some had been popped open by the roughness with which they were dealt, spilling clothes out into the open. Grover began to see that this wasn't something the satyrs were doing out of kindness or duty. He felt the hard edge of it. Tasted the bloodlust in it.

The satyr speaking to him got closer, almost whispering. "Let's get one over on these damn humans, huh? Play a little joke. What'dya say you take ol' Bolly here," he patted the gigantopod on the shell, "and stink some of this stuff up? Just comb over it a few times. Really get the juices in there." His voice darkened as he talked. "See how they like it."

"Y-You want me to… ride over their clothes?"

"That's right."

By now, the two satyrs tossing luggage had finished up the bus. There was still a whole other one left, but they decided that could be taken care of in due time. For now, they walked over to Grover and their friend, set to watch the show.

Now all three satyrs looked to Grover, smirking at him, egging him on.

"Come on, Grover."

"It'll be funny."

"Get back at 'em a little."

Grover looked around. "They're children of D-Demeter, right? And Dionysus. Aster said—"

"Who gives a shit about Asterion?" the lead satyr said. His eyes narrowed now. Grover wilted under his glare. "You actually listen to that… that _bullhead_? Who cares? He's no satyr. Hell, he's not even a nature spirit, is he? Well?"

"N-No, I guess not…"

"That's right. We satyrs gotta stick together. Right?"

"I mean… yeah."

"So?" The lead satyr gestured to the luggage, arms spread to it, inviting. "C'mon. Do something, Grover. For once, do something, ya dimple."

At this, the other two satyrs laughed a bit, and Grover's shoulders drooped.

"Yeah, Grover. Earn your keep, will ya?"

"What, you wanna be a dimple forever?"

"Dimple! That's rich!"

Grover looked down at his hands. His horns were still growing in, so they all called him dimple. Him and all the other satyrs who hadn't been around as long. He was a Little Horn of Clover, same as the three satyrs that made fun of him, but a dimple _wasn't_ the same. They shared the same patch on their chests—the same horn insignia, a small green thing—but they weren't the same, and he knew it, and _believed_ it.

His hands tightened around the reins. He would do it. He would ride over the luggage. Bolly's voice drifted into his head, asking if he'd do it, and he thought, _yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it alright. I won't be a dimple forever._

But his hands wouldn't move. They couldn't. He was frozen in his saddle, anxious and feeling alone among the laughter of the other three satyrs.

Then, just as his panic was starting to rise, one of the suitcases banged. All four satyrs around the pile stopped. Their eyes went to that suitcase, and again, something banged from inside. Like something was trying to get out.

"What in Hades?"

"Check it out."

As one, the three satyrs moved to see what was going on. The suitcase was bouncing in place now, something hitting its sides from the inside. Grover tightened his grip on the reins until the rope bit into his hands and almost drew blood. Now the anxiety was replaced by a new type of fear, and he started trembling, breath coming out in short bursts.

The suitcase began trembling too. Wildly. _A monster,_ Grover thought. _It has to be._ He saw the tree satyrs get closer and closer, climbing atop the luggage pile until they stood right above it. Two of them, the two that had gotten all the luggage out, even crouched to get a closer look.

The suitcase fell silent. It was still now, causing the satyrs to come even closer. Then they heard a click.

"YAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Percy Jackson popped out of the suitcase, arms up in the air. He flew up so fast and so suddenly that both hands punched out at the satyrs crouching beside him, catching them by surprise and sending both flying off the luggage pile.

"I made it!" Percy said, voice flying up with him. He started laughing.

The two satyrs he'd punched lied on the ground, cheeks bruised and battered, groaning in pain. The one who'd escaped such a fate, and Grover too for that matter, looked down at Percy with the bewilderment of one who was suddenly thrown into an alien planet.

"What in… What in the Hades?"

Percy turned around to see who'd spoken. His eyes met the satyrs, and the satyr backed up a step, hands coming up between them. "Hey!" Percy said, grinning. "My names' Percy Jackson! Sorry, but I snuck in!"

"…. Uh…."

Both Grover and the other satyr watched dumbfounded as Percy got out of the suitcase, rolled down the luggage pile, and began stretching on solid ground. "Man, that was a tight fit, y'know! And I got so _hungry_! Oi…" Percy stopped stretching, fixing both remaining satyrs with a look far more serious than either were ready for, his face contorting into sternness, transformed into a different person before their very eyes. "… You guys got something to eat?"

The satyr and Grover looked at each other then, finding in themselves some amount of comradery for once, seeing that the other was just as off-step as themselves. Then, the older satyr realized with a start his own position, and where they were, and exactly what was happening. His glare settled on Percy.

"You're an intruder!" he said, pointing.

Percy, his stretching complete, began picking his nose. "Yep!"

"And a human!"

"… Yep!"

"You're not allowed here at all!"

Percy flicked a booger off to the side. "Sorry."

"You don't sound like you're sorry!"

Then, Percy noticed the gigantopod Grover rode on. He went to it, eyes wide and filled with wonder. "Woah! Look at that snail!" He began patting its shell without pause. "It's so big!"

Grover leaned back away from Percy, as much as he could without falling off. As the boy patted his mount, Bolly started doing something like purring, a start-and-stop sound like the soft screeching of a wheel. Hearing it, Grover realized Bolly liked it.

"Hey, I'm Percy Jackson!" the boy said, giving the satyr a toothy smile. "What's your name?"

"G-Grover. Grover Underwood…" the words came out without his meaning to, but by then it was too late. Percy grabbed Grover's hand and began shaking it.

"Nice to meet you! Hey, can I ride a snail too? And where's the food around here?"

 _Where' the food?_ The words caught in Grover's throat, and so he stayed silent, not quite knowing what to say. On one hand, he'd been told over and over that humans weren't to be trusted. On the other hand, this human was so friendly that he couldn't help but want to trust him. Plus, and perhaps most importantly, Bolly _already_ trusted him. He could hear the gigantopod's insistence to bring the boy along. If there was any good judge of character, as far as he knew, it was Bolly.

By then, the other satyr—whose name was Milford—had grown irritated that Percy seemed to completely ignore his calls of authority. So, stepping forward, he caught Percy's wrist in his hand, holding it tight. He turned the boy around to face him.

"I don't think you heard me, human! What do you think you're doing here?" Milford said, a vein popping out his forehead.

Percy stared at him. His head fell to one side. "I wanted to see the big tree," he said, and right then, as he had to look up at the taller satyr, his eyes went past the bus they stood behind. His breath caught.

High, high above them, reaching up into the sky so tall that it had been easy enough not to even notice, there stood the trunk of a tree. To Percy, it was a trunk, because the rest of the tree was too large to be fully grasped with his sight. The trunk's width spread for what seemed like a mile on either side, and as his eyes trailed up, Percy saw that the wood began branching out into the clouds. He couldn't even see the cover of leaves.

Wrapping around the trunk like a snake was a platform made of sanded wood, and on it, Percy saw the minute impressions of what looked like people. Some walked up and down the platform, while others seemed to be riding atop something in big groups. And at the base of the tree, partially hidden by the bus, Percy saw the hollow opening that stretched out at least five stories up, like a great big mouth.

Only then did he notice too that what had looked like hills all around him were actually roots, some stabbing up out of the ground, others slipping slowly down into it in graceful arcs. All in all, the majesty of it left him well and truly speechless, the first time since he'd been introduced to the crazy world he was now a part of.

The Hoof of the World. The tallest tree in North America, its orange-red leaves stretching up thousands of feet into the sky, a miniature mountain made solely out of plant life. Its hollow trunk was home to Clover, an organization created some fifty years before to control the environmental impact of modern life. Nature spirits from all around the world worked in its name, infiltrating governments, protecting national parks, cleaning out the oceans, you name it, they're part of it. At least, that's what Percy had heard from a Dionysus camper before he'd decided to sneak in.

Milford kept talking, either not seeing the glister in Percy's eyes or not caring for it. "I don't know who you think you are, kid, but you're in big trouble! Just let Master Leneus hear about this…" His eyes went to Grover, and the other satyr jumped. "Hey, dimple! Change of plans. Let me take Bolly up to see Leneus. We'll figure out what to do with this guy."

At the mention of _trouble_ , Percy snapped back to reality. "Oh! Uh, sorry, but I can't get caught yet," he said.

Milford looked down at him, glaring. "Well, _sorry_ , but I don't _care_. I'm bringing you in."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am!"

"Nuh-huh."

"We'll see what happens, then!" Milford said. Now incensed, he began walking away towards the tree, hand tightening around Percy's wrist.

It took him a while to realize that he was walking in place. When he did, he looked down at his hooves, saw them sliding across the dirt. Then, he looked back at Percy, who stood still and stable, and even a little bored.

Frowning, Milford stood his ground and pulled on Percy's arm. Nothing happened. The boy didn't budge even a little. The satyr pulled harder.

Grover saw all this, his eyes wide, mouth hanging open. He saw Milford spread his legs to pull, then use both arms, then go around Percy and try to push the boy from behind. He tried to pick the boy up off the ground, but Percy's feet seemed glued to it.

"You're pretty weak, huh?" Percy said, looking at Milford with something akin to pity.

His scowl now firmly locked, Milford stood in front of Percy, seething. "I'll have you know, I'm a recruit for—"

Milford was thrown back into the bus. He dented the side, body crumpling into the metal, before sliding down to the ground in an unconscious heap. Percy brought a hand up to his mouth and yawned.

"Anyway," he said, turning to Grover, who was now shaking hard enough to make the shell he sat on tremble. "You mind showing me around the place, Grover? Preferably the cafeteria?"

"Uh…. Uh…"

"…. You alright?"

"Uh…."

Percy stared at him for a long while. Then, his eyes lit up, and he brought his hands together behind his head. "Oh, you're scared," he said.

He'd seen that expression before. White as a sheet, mouth agape, eyes going this way and that like he was about to cross the road. It was something he'd grown used to, even. The first time had been a full-grown man who'd been pointing a gun at him and was set to pull the trigger. He'd smacked him in the face with the barrel, then tossed the thing out of his hands and off the side of the building they'd stood on. All without moving an inch. The way his face morphed from wonder to realization to horror had almost been funny. Almost.

By now, Percy had grown bored of it. "Hey, I'm not gonna kill you or anything. Calm down," he said, voice drawling. He began walking towards the satyr, ignoring the groans from the two he'd accidentally punched out.

As he neared, Grover began trembling harder. He didn't hear Percy's words, he was shaking so bad. But then, Bolly's mewl pierced through the thumping of his own heart, and it told him that there wasn't anything to worry about. That he'd be fine.

Before he knew it, Percy was standing right before him, petting Bolly's head. Slick mucus dripped form him as he did, but the boy didn't seem to care. Watching it, hearing Bolly's purrs, Grover's fear abated despite himself.

"These things are super gross," Percy said, though he kept petting Bolly. And he was smiling.

That's what did it for Grover. The smile. There was no danger in it. If he hadn't just seen what Percy could do, he'd have even thought it was sort of dumb-looking.

"You're not part of the camper group are you?" Grover asked. He saw that Percy was dressed as a camper, with the orange shirt all the other demigods had come wearing, but it was clear to him that he wasn't supposed to be there.

Percy shrugged. "No. But I heard about this place, and I thought it'd be cool is all."

Grover knew that he should report him. Go up to a senior, even another little horn, and tell them all about the kid who'd sneaked into Clover. He was a human, after all, one completely disconnected from nature as far as he could see. But Bolly liked him. And Grover hadn't really spent any time with a human in some years.

Speaking of which…

"Do you know Annabeth, by any chance? Annabeth Chase?"

It was Percy's turn to be surprised. He looked at Grover, eyes wide. "Yeah! She kicked my ass! You know her?"

Well, maybe the rules could wait a bit, Grover thought.

* * *

Malcolm was waiting for her back in the room.

This single thought put Katie at ease even as she followed the rest of the camp group into the dining pavilion. He'd gotten out of the suitcase, and was now sitting in her bed or his, probably resting. _That, or playing around with his new toy,_ Katie thought, a smile coming to her when she remembered the excitement on his face when he'd told her about it.

That smile bloomed even more when she saw the large chamber they entered. What looked to be a simple hole on the side of the Hoof's trunk became a giant, circular room the size of a small stadium. Its walls, floor, and ceiling were sandpapered to perfection, looking so smooth that light reflected off them as well as any marble construction. Inside, two rings of round tables circled its perimeter, truly gigantic tables fit to serve thousands of people.

Even then, Katie and her siblings followed after their guide, a forest nymph named Sadine. They walked across the room and through the frenzied crowd of all sorts of spirits—satyrs mostly, some of them giving their group rather derisive looks, but there were also a wealth of multicolored nymphs; among them _hamadryades_ , _oreades_ , _meliae_ , and even some salt-water dryads who'd somehow made it inland. All the way at the back, she saw a smaller table, one fit for only a handful of people, and sitting on it, Katie saw her for the first time.

Her mother was easily the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen in her life. Clean, silky waves of hair the color of maple wood flowed down to her shoulders in generous arcs, framing the curve of a face that Katie could only describe as purely pretty. She'd always imagined her mother to match what she'd seen in magazines and television—someone akin to a model—but the reality was much closer to what she'd think of a princess, or even a young queen, with her melodious curves hidden under a simple white gown, like she'd taken a break from court and had decided to go take a walk in the gardens.

The Goddess Demeter looked back, only for a second, but it was enough for their eyes to meet and for Katie to become immediately ashamed. At once, the girl felt that her mother could see right through what she'd done, the rules she'd broken, and the rules she planned to keep breaking. She noticed what looked like a small frown develop on Demeter's incandescent face, before the goddess was addressed by the person sitting next to her and turned.

Katie sighed then, not having realized the way her heart was beating. She heard the murmurs of her siblings, most of them having likely never seen Demeter either, all of them excited at the chance of being in the same room with her. Some even ventured to think they'd get to talk to her.

Sadine led the group all the way around the room to their seats, and it was only when Katie slid in under the table—prepared with plates and cutlery as it was—that she noticed the most impressive thing about the place.

Rising high into the room, almost touching the ceiling some forty feet up, was a giant flower. Its stem was as thick as the largest redwood, and its many white petals were big enough to use as blankets. It was covered in a strange, green sap that looked like it was glowing, and a tidal wave of fireflies circled it, some coming to rest on the sap to eat, others drifting off the flower altogether and flying around the room as they wished.

Fire was not allowed in the Hoof. That's what Sadine had told them as they journeyed into the maze-like hallways and tunnels of it. There were no torches to light the many rooms and pathways. No electricity. All they had were the fireflies, who were enough in number to keep the whole place as bright as any building in New York. And those fireflies were attracted by one thing.

"That's Halcyon, alright," Sadine said, sitting next to her. Katie turned on a dime, blushing at being caught in her reverie. The dryad laughed. "Don't worry, I was worse the first time I saw it. You don't see lots of granadines around these days."

Katie nodded dumbly, looking back at this flower. A granadine, the rarest species on the planet. No one even knew if there were any left aside from the one in that very room, its stem popping out of a hole in the floor, planted far, far below at the entrance chamber and rising 700 feet in the air all the way to where it bloomed now.

Halcyon, the Flower of Promise. She'd heard about it, as anyone in camp had heard about the wonders of Clover's headquarters, but only ever in stories and rumors. In some ways, it was even more impressive to her than the mountain-tree it was planted within.

A gong went off. The room quieted. As the low ring echoed, Katie noticed that everyone was now seated, all the thousands who'd come to that room. Some kept to muttering, but all eyes were now on the one who'd struck the instrument, standing behind the head table, the one who sat next to her own mother. A satyr. Fat, rotund, his goat legs looking far too small on his wide frame, and his beard curling up at the ends like some kind of wizard.

But his face was hard as stone, and just one glance around the room from him quieted even those who'd been whispering.

"I welcome all of you to this great wonder of our mother Earth," he said, letting the gong stick down on the table. "I especially want to welcome Lady Demeter and Lord Dionysus, who've taken a reprieve of their affairs in Olympus to join us here for this most important week."

At this, the room burst into applause, Katie joining it without even meaning to, then participating wholeheartedly. Her mother smiled and waved. The God Dionysus, sitting on her other side, ignored the cheering, head on his forehead like he had a headache.

"And… I'll welcome also our guests who we have here alongside them. Their children, all the way form Camp Half-Blood."

The applause was more polite this time, even strained. It was clear many didn't want to do it at all, but Katie saw many of the attendants seem to swallow it down. They were all looking at the gods in the room.

"I'll welcome also all the Middle Horns that were able to make it. We know you are all halfway through some project or other, and your loyalty isn't overlooked. Welcome home, all of you."

A final round of applause, some hoots even. Katie saw some satyrs hug each other, pat each other on the shoulder, laugh like old friends seeing each other after a long time. Some of the same people who'd forced themselves to clap for them. The thought made Katie frown for the first time all day.

She'd noticed the cold shoulder her and the other campers had been getting. She'd have to be blind not to. Glares, curt responses, upturned noses like the smell was too much. Katie was disappointed, but the rumors she'd heard at camp had made her ready for it.

But now she recalled a different time just a year or two before, when satyrs and nature spirits were the friendliest people at camp. When many of them were her friends. She recognized some from across the room, many of which she hadn't had the chance to talk to yet after only one day, and some who had treated her and her siblings the same as the others. Her frown deepened.

"For those who don't know me, I am Leneus, Elder of Clover's Guardian Branch. Next to me are Elder Erato, and Elder Asterion."

The former, a dryad who would've been resplendent If she hadn't been sitting alongside her mother, smiled and nodded. The latter was the Minotaur.

Katie didn't know how it happened. The monster they'd all heard about as children had somehow become part of Clover, and one of its three leaders at that. Even now, its engorged muscles threatened to rip the seams of its green suit. She'd heard it had some kind of redemptive awakening, but looking at it, at the beady eyes and dark horns, she couldn't be sure, even knowing it had been in the job for decades.

"Let's get down to business, then," Leneus said. He walked out from behind the head table, his old but strong voice echoing throughout the room without difficulty. "Clover as an institution was founded only half a century ago, now. It's the most concentrated effort us nature spirits have made at protecting, reclaiming, and searching for those wild places which mankind has more often than not taken to conquer." He walked towards Halcyon, slowly, the tapping of his hooves against the hardwood floor the only sound in the room other than his voice. "But as an idea? Clover's been around far longer than a mere 50 years. Clover's been deep in the hearts of all those who care for this great bounty we've been blessed with here on our great mother Earth."

"Yeah it has!" someone shouted from across the room. There was laughter, and even Leneus smiled a bit.

"There's the excitement I want to see," the satyr said, turning to the voice. "Right there! That's the spirit that has fueled us for centuries! For millennia! Since the beginning, there were those of us who knew that, at the end of the day, _this_ is all we had!" He spread his arms out at the room, but his eyes affixed themselves firmly on Halcyon, and his smile dropped. "My friend Halcyon knew it too. We were just a couple of kids trying to protect the land we cared so much about. Cared about it so much that it ended up killing him."

He paused, looking down at his hooves in a kind of remembrance. Katie looked back at the head table. She saw the forlorn look on Elder Erato's face. Even the Minotaur's monstrous visage was twisted into something like sorrow.

"But he lives on still. His promise lives here with us in the Clover he founded." Leneus put his hand on Halcyon's stem. Fireflies danced around him. "The promise that, one day, the world will be green and wild again. That one day, mother Earth and all her children will live in peace." He turned to examine the crowd, and when his eyes swept across the campers, Katie thought she saw them narrow just the slightest bit. The look disappeared just as quickly as it had come. "That's what we're doing here today, and in the days to come. It's a chance for us all to come together and figure out what's best for mother Earth moving forward. Talk to each other. Share your ideas. Your discoveries. Your accomplishments. Your hopes and dreams. And don't be afraid to share them with us! If we work together, we can surely find some way to save ourselves from the wretched state we find ourselves in."

A sour look crossed his face then, and Leneus looked to spit, but seemed to think better of it. He swallowed, turning back to walk towards the head table. "Fuel emissions are on the rise. The seas are being filled with plastic. Animals dying left and right. It's a truly _wretched_ state we're in. Perhaps, mankind will one day realize how much damage they truly deal. How sick they make us to our stomachs. But until then, all we can do is find solutions with each other."

Katie slouched back on her seat. She saw some of her siblings do the same. The tips of her ears were burning, and it didn't help that some of the nature spirits around them gave their group rather pointed looks.

Leneus was now back beside her mother. He grabbed the back of his chair, pulling it out. "And in that spirit, with the powers given to me by my office and the grace of my peers, I call this our Fifth Decennial Jubilee… Officially commenced!"

The room erupted into applause. Right at that moment, servers burst into the room, satyrs and nymphs and all other sorts of spirits, all carrying platters of food over their heads. They set the great plates down onto the tables, and almost immediately everyone began to eat with ravenous frenzy. The room that had just seconds ago been completely silent was now filled with chatter and cheering and bleating and laughter and sliding chairs.

And all through it, Katie was excited. She got right to feasting with everyone else. Sadine passed her a plate of bread, and she took two loaves before passing it along. She grabbed for fruit. She forked mouthfuls of spinach and grapes. She smiled.

Katie wanted to share her ideas and hear others' stories. The noise and chaos of the pavilion was welcome to her. But all throughout, a feeling creeped its way down her chest and settled deep in her gut. Even amongst so much joy and enthusiasm, Katie couldn't help but feel as if she didn't belong.

* * *

 **Here is where the story truly begins.**

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	8. Book 3, Act 2

It was late. Most in the Hoof had turned in for the night.

High in the topmost branches, in a large round hut made of wood and straw, Leneus lit his pipe. It was a small thing, but enough to calm him down and get a good buzz going as he sat behind his desk. Around him were piles upon piles of parchment, both on the desk and on the floor. Forms, reports, documents, and all sorts of other things needing his signature or stamp surrounded him in a fortress of paper.

It all took on a greenish tint. Pages made of magically woven leaf matter, of course. No need to cut down any trees for Clover's purposes.

He sat and smoked there, the Guardian's Hut empty aside from him and Sen at the desk beside his. Although generally silent, the dryad had been pleasant enough company over her years as a Great Horn, pleasant enough to be made his assistant. That, and Leneus needed someone stricter than him to keep his schedule organized.

"You'll burn us all away one day, sir," Sen said, shooting him a dirty look as he blew smoke out into the thick straw ceiling.

"And you've been telling me that for decades, Sen."

The dryad grunted, adjusting her glasses and narrowing her eyes at her own pile of parchment. She'd been filing through it all day, even skipping the entrance ceremony, and it was still only halfway done.

"I really wish we didn't have so much," she sighed, turning the paper over and placing it in the _out_ pile. "Or that this was all legit, at least."

"Price of doing dirty business," Leneus said. He leaned back on his chair, wishing not for the first time that it could recline. His large gut eased off the pressure it had against the desk, and he sighed, blowing out more smoke.

It was something they'd been practicing over the last two years. The more bogus reports they sent out, the less likely his real reports would be found, especially by his fellow Elders. The guardians had been getting more recruits than any other branch anyway, so it made sense for them to have more logistics to work through. That's the excuse he'd been giving, at least.

Leneus wasn't happy about all the secrecy, but he hoped his peers would see things his way soon enough. _Just a day or two left,_ he thought. _Just a day or two, and everything comes together. Finally._

Just then, two satyrs burst in, whipping the curtains at the entrance aside as they marched up to his desk. Their hooves pounded hard on the planked floor.

"Elder Leneus!" one of them said, a Middle Horn Guardian whose name Leneus didn't recall. "It's Milford, sir! He's—"

"Who's Milford?" Leneus said, setting his pipe down on the desk. He glanced Sen's way, calming her with only a look. She stuffed the knife in her hand back under her desk.

The Middle Horn, and the satyr next to him, both stood at attention. "Ah, he's a prospect, sir. Well, _was_ a prospect."

Leneus raised a brow. "He's dead?"

"No, just injured. A few broken bones. Probably won't make it in time for..."

"Well, spit it out then," Leneus said. He scratched at his beard. "What happened to him?"

The Middle Horn nudged the satyr beside him. Nervous, the other satyr, a Little Horn, stepped forward. His jaw looked bruised, and he had some trouble speaking. "Ah, well Elder Leneus sir, uh… We were… attacked?"

"Attacked?"

"Yeah. Attacked."

The Middle Horn groaned, shoving the other satyr aside. "There's an intruder, sir. A human intruder."

Leneus shot up, the chair he sat on falling sideways to the floor. "A _human_ intruder? Where? Who?"

"We don't know who he is or where he came from," the Middle Horn said, face grim. "But he injured three of ours. Easily, too, if what Lock here told me is true."

Leneus set his eyes on Lock, the Little Horn. The injured satyr stepped back, swallowing hard. "He was… He was crazy. Came out of a suitcase in that bus those demigod campers came in. He definitely snuck in. And I bet it was all part of their plan! Those humans are trying to get something, I know it!"

The three satyrs stood in silence. Eventually, Leneus turned around and picked up his chair, setting it upright. He sat on it. "Sen, dear."

"Sir?"

"Call the other Elders. Tell them to meet in the conference room. And get someone to bring those demigods there too."

"Roger that."

"Oh, and one more thing. Get King. Tell her that there's an intruder on the loose." His voice grew darker as he spoke, almost growling. "And tell her to bring him to me. By any means necessary."

* * *

Grover had taken Percy to the stables. It was a long corridor carved into a giant root near the parking lot, big enough to house the several dozen gigantopods Clover kept. The walk had taken ten minutes, and in many instances Percy felt like an ant crawling his way towards a tree, the size of the Hoof something he still wasn't quite used to.

All along, the two talked. Percy told Grover about Annabeth, how she'd beaten him so easily in a fight, and how sassy she'd been on top of it. The satyr had just laughed. _Sounds like her, alright,_ he'd said. Then, his eyes looked far away, and the small smile he'd held was filled with years and years of time passed worrying and remembering. _Good. I'm glad._

At the stables, Grover told Percy about Clover. Specifically, about Jubilee, which was going on right at that very moment. When asked why he wasn't participating, Grover had sighed. The satyr had told the boy that he, being a Little Horn and a dimple besides, was to keep his post. Only Middle Horns and above would be welcome in the feast, alongside the two visiting gods and the various other guests they'd have for the week.

Little Horns were too integral to the workings of Clover. They passed all the paperwork around the Hoof, from the delivery room at its base up to the very top at the Crow's Nest and everywhere in between. They took care of all the gigantopods down in the stable. They sweeped and mopped the floors. They organized mail. Their most important job, however, was to condense the thousands upon thousands of reports that came to Clover on a daily basis into aggregates—summaries short enough to be sent up to the main huts, where they would be looked over by Great Horns.

As for Grover, he was stuck with stable duty. _Stuck_ was his word.

"Ah, so you're a chore boy."

Grover lowered his head, chin tucked against his chest. "Well, when you put it that way…"

Percy kicked his feet, sitting on the door of Bolly's stall. The gigantopod herself outside her stall, eating her fill of crumbed grass and lettuce alongside Grover, who himself picked from the pile as he sat on a stool. Other gigantopods either snored in their stalls or mewled curiously at them, sticky eyes looming over at the two. The rest of the place was empty for the moment, as though Little Horns weren't technically allowed in the feast, all of the ones who worked down at the stable had more or less piled all their work onto Grover and left to go see the party.

"It's true, though," Percy said. In his hand was an apple, the fourth he'd eaten since getting there. The remains of the other three had been eaten by Bolly and Grover, both of whom had been more than happy to serve as trashcans. "You guys get to sit at a desk all day, or you get to do chores. And you're doing chores. Sounds lame."

Grover put his head in his hands, groaning. "I _wish_ I could sit at a desk. That's where all the important stuff happens. I'd even take delivery just to go up to the huts every once in a while."

"Why? It all sounds the same to me."

"It's better than this, at least. No offence, Bolly." Grover patted Bolly's side, not that the gigantopod noticed in the middle of her feast. "I mean, stablework is just… ugh. I'll never be a searcher like this."

"What's a searcher?"

Grover's eyes lit up with a fire that Percy hadn't even considered possible from the satyr. Suddenly, he was up on his hooves, pacing around in front of Percy, arms waving this way and that. "The Searcher Branch! I'd die for a chance to work there! Go out, find new wild places, and maybe even find the Great God Pan! It'd be a dream come true!"

Percy bit into his apple. He didn't know what Grover was talking about, but the satyr seemed happy about it, so he decided not to interrupt.

"I mean, getting promoted to Middle Horn would be great anyway! I'd work with the guardians or the recclaimers, I wouldn't mind, but a _searcher_! If I got to pick, I'd definitely pick that! Oh, I wish I could go up to Master Asterion right now and ask him! And if he said _yes_!"

Now Percy did feel the need to speak up. "You should then. Right? I mean, what's stopping you?"

Grover wilted before his eyes so fast that Percy had to stave off a cough. The satyr slumped back onto the stool, face drooping, arms slacking down like wet noodles. "Oh, I could never do that. Not _me_."

"Well… Not with _that_ attitude."

"It's just how it is, Percy," Grover said. His hand came up to rub his small horns, the nubs barely popping out of his curled mess of hair. "I'm not just a Little Horn. I'm a _dimple_. No one around here takes me seriously at all, and to be honest, I can't even blame them. It's why I'm down here instead of up on a desk going through reports. All the dead-end jobs go to dimples around here."

Percy raised a brow, face flat. "I don't get it."

Grover shook his head. "Dimples are Little Horns who no one likes around. It's not a real position, but everyone calls us that. Either we're too young or useless or—"

"No," Percy held up a hand, biting into his apple one last time and throwing the skinny remains on the pile for Bolly. "I mean _I don't get it_. Who cares if you're a dimple or a Little Horn or a Middle Horn or whatever else it is? What's that got to do with anything?"

"Searchers are Middle Horns who get into the Searcher Branch," Grover said, "so I gotta get promoted, see? But I won't, because dimples don't _get_ promoted. Not for a long, long time, at least."

Percy dropped down from the stall door. "Man, screw that. Why not just be a searcher _without_ getting promoted?"

"… Huh?"

"Who needs all those rules anyway?" Percy said. He began digging into his ear, walking over to the stable exit. "Sounds lame. You should just do whatever."

Grover got up from his stool and followed the other boy out into the night. Bolly, looking up from her meal and seeing the two on their way out, went after them."I have to follow the rules. You can't just… What, be a searcher without Clover! That doesn't make any sense!"

"Makes sense to me."

"I'm starting to think that what makes sense to you doesn't completely make sense to anyone else…"

Percy stopped suddenly, so suddenly that Grover almost bumped into his back. He turned around, looking the least bit annoyed. "What do searchers do?" he said.

Grover took a step back. "What do you mean?"

"What do searchers _do_?" Percy said again. "What's the point?"

The satyr avoided Percy's eyes, bringing a hand up to his neck. "Um… Go out, sniffing around for Pan. They usually end up finding other things too, but that's the most important job. We _have_ to find him. He's—"

Percy brought a hand up. "See? All you gotta do is look for this pan thing, right? Who said you needed Clover for that? Just go do it."

"I…" Grover let out a frustrated grunt. "Urgh. Never mind, alright? Let's drop it."

"Sure," Percy said, shrugging. He went back on his way towards the Hoof, aiming for the large mouth entrance at the base of the tree. Grover followed, his brow furrowed the whole way.

It wasn't like he'd never thought of leaving Clover. It had been a few years now since Grover joined up, and in that time his progress had been that of a lowly janitor to that of a lowly stable boy. They were both hard work, and the hours especially were brutal enough. But through it all, Grover had always thought back to that day he brought Annabeth and Luke and Thalia back with him to Camp Half-Blood.

It had been stormy, lightning arcing back and forth in the rolling black clouds. Thalia had given her life and been turned into a tree, but Grover always came back to the morning of that day, when they woke up knowing that it would be their last chance to make it across camp borders. All sorts of monsters had been running them ragged for what seemed like weeks, all led by the two giants he'd personally gotten the attention of.

He, Luke, Annabeth, and Thalia had all come together in a circle. They'd brought their hands together at Luke's insistence—a way to raise morale, something they all sorely needed. Tired and hungry, bodies covered in dirt and filth, muscles aching, they'd all put their hands on top of one anothers'.

 _I'll be a great hero,_ Luke had said, looking them all in the eye. _I'll make it to camp, and I'll be a hero so great my dad'll have to notice me._

It had been the frankest he'd been with them since the beginning of their journey, maybe even since he and Thalia begun their trek across the country without Annabeth or Grover years before.

Thalia came next. _I'll…_ she had gulped, looking around at them before steeling herself. _I'll make it to camp and I'll fly one day. I'll fly and I won't be afraid._

They had all nodded. _I'll make it to camp and build a city greater than Olympus!_ Annabeth had said. They'd all shared a laugh. _I'm serious!_ she kept saying, until finally she'd been forced to share in the mirth.

Then, they'd all looked back at him, at Grover, the last. He'd swallowed hard, looking down at his hooves, before raising his eyes with a strange sort of determination. It was something he hadn't been able to find since.

 _I'll make it to camp, and then… I'll become a searcher. An honest-to-gods searcher, like my uncle._

And now, as Grover followed Percy into the Hoof in the silence of the night, he thought back to that moment. The feeling in his chest when he'd said those words. Like his heart had grown to fill up the whole of his ribs, pushing against them, ready to burst out. It had been exhilarating.

"It has to be in Clover," he said, finally.

"Huh?" Percy turned his head, but continued to move forward, feet now stepping on the wooden slope that led into the Hoof's mouth. "I thought we dropped it."

"It has to be in Clover," Grover repeated, "or it doesn't count."

Percy stared. Something in Grover's face must've carried on that feeling, because the boy went on to smile, all teeth, so wide he had to close his eyes. "If you say so," he said, and that was that.

They walked in.

The first thing Percy noticed were the fireflies. They filled the whole place to the brim, lighting it despite the hour in a warm, yellow glow. The chamber was huge, easily the largest Percy had ever been in, a circular room stretching over hundreds of yards in either direction. A ramp wrapped all the way around its circumference, spiraling its way up and out, leading to somewhere above.

But nothing was more apparent than its center. Surrounded by a central garden blooming with flowers and tall grass stood a stem. It was a thick stem, one that Percy couldn't imagine wrapping his arms around even if his arms were twice as long, covered in a strange sort of glowing sap. It rose out from the ground and up, up, up into the ceiling, where a hole was carved out for its exit.

Grover followed Percy's eyes to that hole where the stem disappeared. "That's Halcyon," he said, hooves clomping on the floor. "It's so tall that it goes all the way up to the pavilion. Cool, right?"

"You bet," Percy said, and the thought of it made his grin widen even more. "Let's go check it out!"

Grover looked at the boy, the anxiety of their situation coming back to him. "Uh… actually, that might not be the best idea. Everyone's asleep right now, but there might be some people on night shift, and if they find you—"

"You worry too much, Grovey," Percy said, already walking over to the ramp. "This is the way up, right? Come on!"

Grover looked at Percy as the boy began walking up the ramp, then at Bolly who had followed after them. He groaned. "Percy, wait!"

His voice was so insistent that Percy actually stopped in his tracks. He turned around.

"At least hop on Bolly," Grover said, climbing onto her shell himself. "Believe me, that's a climb you don't wanna make on your own."

At this, Percy chuckled, jogging over to join the satyr. "Always to my rescue, Grovey!" He jumped onto Bolly's shell behind Grover, then kicked the snail's sides, raising a fist in the air. "Let's go see that flower!"

Bolly let out an excited mewl of her own, and as they went up the ramp and out of the entrance chamber, Grover grumbled to himself.

"Let's hope that's all that happens."

* * *

Malcolm twirled Annabeth's invisibility cap around his finger. He sat on a chair against the corner, across from Katie, who sat on the bed. The room they were in was one usually saved for Middle Horns returning home, sparse and windowless, with only the door to break the wooden monotony of the walls. The demigod guests had been given one room per two people, and so Katie had been set up with Lia Romack, who had unfortunately gotten a rather bad rash just before the trip, and was forced to stay home to recover.

Katie still felt bad about Lia. She felt even worse about having to work with the dreaded Stoll brothers, who'd been more than happy to coat Lia's clothes with their special itch powder. But Malcolm had needed to come to the Hoof, and there was no other place for him to stay than with her.

"I think it's about that time," Malcolm said. He held out his wristwatch, revealing it to be almost midnight.

"Most people should be in bed by now," Katie agreed.

Malcolm stood up. He pulled a sealed envelope out from his pocket. "Let's hope Grover's most people, whoever he is. Floors two to six, right?"

"That's what Sadine told me."

Supposedly, that would be the living quarters for all Little Horns. Ring Rooms is what they were called—long corridors that wrapped around the Hoof like giant donuts stacked on top of one another, each holding an army of bunkbeds and side drawers.

Malcolm sighed, pocketing the letter. "It's gonna be a long night."

"Just be back before—"

Right then, there was a knock. Katie and Malcolm both froze, looking at the door with held breaths. Their heads then turned as one to look at each other. Another knock followed, someone saying, "Katie, you up?"

Malcolm put Annabeth's cap on, disappearing from view. Katie watched him vanish, as if simply popping out of existence, then turned to the door. She coughed into her hand. "Yeah? Who is it?"

The knob turned with a click. Chris Lee, her head of cabin, stood at the open doorway, peering in, face sour. "Sorry," he said.

Katie stood from her bed and walked over to him. Her arms crossed. "What's going on, Lee?"

The other demigod opened his mouth to answer, but then a dryad stepped out from behind the wall. Katie's eyes widened. Short, green hair loaded with the heads of roses and lilies, her old teacher Bree made for a unique sight, if not a welcome one.

"What's going on," Bree said, her eyes piercing icily into Katie's, "is that there's an intruder running around. One who seems to have come in from one of your buses. You're all being asked to go into questioning."

Katie's breath stopped short. Her hand came up to cover her mouth, even as her body began trembling. "Oh, that sounds…" she trailed off, her breathing becoming too wild. Her skin was paling. "That sounds—"

A hand came to rest on her shoulder. She turned, but found nothing there, and realized it must be Malcolm. She felt him squeeze, softly, and she closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. She exhaled, looking back at Lee and Bree, who were now staring rather strangely.

"Just surprised," she said, waving their looks off. Katie stepped forward, then walked through the door and out into the dimly lit hall, fireflies roaming close to the ceiling. The hand on her shoulder kept a firm hold, and she allowed the warmth of it to calm her down. Malcolm was fine. They were fine.

She turned to see that most of the camp group had already been woken and were now standing lined up against the wall. They all looked either sleepy or worried or both. Katie guessed she hadn't been the only one to feel uneasy ever since they'd gotten there.

"Well, lead on," she said, looking back at Bree.

The dryad nodded, then walked forward, and the gang of demigods followed.

The group walked for a while, the Hoof's hallways twisting and splitting like an underground root system within the tree itself. Soon enough, Katie was lost. This was the reason they'd been told to get a guide at all times—going from one point to another in the Hoof was near impossible without what seemed like years of experience. It was a good reason, and one she believed, but Katie was beginning to suspect that they would've been required to have a guide even if the Hoof's halls were laid out more simply. Someone to watch over them, or more accurately, to watch _for_ them.

"What's gonna happen here?" Lee said. He walked alongside Katie and right behind Bree, the rest behind them. "Don't tell me we're getting blamed for this."

"The intruder seems to have been wearing clothes from your camp," Bree said, not turning back to look. "The Elders wish to see you in person. Your guilt will be judged accordingly."

The silence after her words was deafening. Every one of the campers could hear her, quiet as the rest of the place was. Suddenly, the labyrinth they journeyed through came to resemble more of a prison, or the path towards one.

"I… wouldn't worry," Bree said. She kept facing forward, but now her voice dropped, losing its edge. "If you're all innocent—and I believe you are—then nothing should happen. It's just standard protocol."

Katie smiled. She remembered Bree as warm and friendly, nothing like the stern inquisitor they'd been following, and was glad to see that there was something of her old friend left.

She was so involved in her thoughts that she didn't notice Malcolm's hand leaving her shoulder until it was already gone. The realization almost made her turn around to see where he went, but Katie stopped herself and kept walking, trying to pretend like nothing was wrong.

 _Don't get caught,_ she thought, then out loud, she said "How've you been, Bree?"

"Fine," Bree said, then after a beat, she sighed. "Well, it's strange… After all those years, to come back here. But staying at camp, it's…"

There was something in her words—hesitation or maybe even a little shame. Katie jumped on it. "Whatever's wrong," she said, slowly, "you can tell us. Bree, what's happening in Clover? Why'd you leave?"

Just like that, Bree shut down. "It's complicated. And personal," she said, then nothing more.

Katie looked sideways at Lee. He just shook his head, though he shared her frown. They followed their old teacher through the coiling tunnels, getting more and more lost with each step, all in utter silence.

* * *

A blanket of clouds blocked the moonlight, casting everything under it in an unnatural pitch black. Luckily for Percy and Grover, fireflies coiled all around the Hoof, floating around it in a sort of magic field. If it wasn't for their yellow glow, Bolly might've slipped off the side of the platform she carried them through, plunging them all down hundreds of feet to their deaths.

It was the same thin strip that Percy had seen coiled around and around the Hoof's trunk when he'd first looked up at it. Wooden panels imbedded into the side, climbing smoothly and steadily up into the taller branches and disappearing into their heavy bush. They'd been going up this path for the last few minutes, Bolly making short work of the journey.

Percy leaned back on Bolly, hands behind his head, looking up at the rolling shapes in the sky. Every once in a while, some light would seep through and give the clouds the vaguest hints of shape, and so the boy tried to find shapes he could recognize. At one point, he saw a giant eagle, at another an alien.

"Look!" he said, pointing up. "It's a sasquatch!"

Grover, sitting in front of him and grabbing a tight hold of Bolly's reins, threw the boy a glare over his shoulder. "How are you so calm about this? You're an intruder!" He looked around him, eyes going back and forth nervously. "This is nuts!"

"Yeah, I can't believe no one's found us yet!" Percy said, smiling. He glanced back at Grover. "What're you gonna tell them? You're probably getting in trouble too."

"I know!"

"You're supposed to stop this from happening, y'know."

"I know!"

"Let's see…" Percy put a hand to his chin. The two sat in silence for a bit, before Percy once again pointed a finger up at the sky. "It's the Loch Ness Monster!"

Grover slumped forward. He could see it now. His entire life's work, ruined in one night. They'd be found out, and then he'd get fired, exiled from the Hoof as a traitor, probably marked in some blacklist for eternity. His children, whatever children he could even have with his reputation, would share the same fate, and for the rest of time the Underwood name would be dragged through the dirt in all the wild places of the world.

It was too late now, regardless. He and Percy were already halfway up the Hoof undetected, and to get caught now meant trouble for him. For whatever reason, his first instinct had been to help Percy, or at least to not rat him out. Why was he doing this anyway? Grover didn't know.

Percy peered over the side, looking straight down. The drop descended into shadow, too dark for him to make out any details about the forest he knew lay just beneath them.

He whistled. "No handrails, huh? You guys sure live on the edge, I'll give you that."

Grover shrugged. "Satyrs _are_ part goat. We're used to tall places."

"If you say so." With a grunt, Percy waved his hand at a couple of fireflies that flew too close to him for comfort. "Anyway, what's up with all these fireflies? I've seen more here than in my entire life."

"It's Halcyon," Grover said, then yawned. He brought up a hand to rub at his eyes. "The nectar that it puts out, that green stuff? Fireflies go crazy for it. It's one of the reasons it got planted right inside the Hoof in the first place. Kinda hard to light the inside of a tree with candles or electricity."

"Hmm… Does it taste good?"

"What? No. Jeez, do you ever think about anything else?"

Percy smiled. "What else is there?" he said, then laughed when Grover sent him a stink eye over his shoulder.

It reached Grover's ears first, but he just attributed them to the wind. Soon enough, though, even Percy could hear it. Puffs of air, like rhythmic huffing. Getting closer and closer.

"What's that?" Percy said, sitting up. The two looked around, seeing nothing. The sound got louder as time passed, until eventually it sounded like it was right next to them.

"I've heard that somewhere before…" Grover said, trailing off. Then, with a start, he heaved, "Oh gods, don't tell me!"

Percy turned to him, annoyed. "What?"

"They sent… They sent—"

Something boomed into place before them. Bolly stopped abruptly, jerking the two forward, Percy almost falling off the shell. Their heads butted together, Percy's front with Grover's back.

The boy rubbed his forehead, looking over Grover's shoulder. "The hell's going on?" he said. Grover's simple response was to point forward, mutely, face growing pale.

In front of them was a crumpled body. It cursed, then got up rather painfully, dusting itself off, until finally Percy could see that it was a woman or what looked like a woman, except her skin was tinged green, and she must've been taller than any lady Percy had ever seen. She wore baggy pants, wider at the bottom and then wrapping tightly back around the ankles like something straight out of the desert, and a sash that wrapped all around her torso and leg, floating almost magically, without a start or stop in sight.

Far more important, though was the thing in her hand, a staff that looked more like a scepter, golden and topped in a sharp tip. Her hair, maple brown and drifting down, down, down to her feet was ponytailed up with a small crown, and her eyes, sharp blades in and of themselves, pierced both the boy and his satyr companion with a red-tinged fury.

"Sorry about that," she said, voice deep but sheepish, "I am still working on the landing." Percy and Grover stared at her. She stared back. Eventually, she coughed into her hand. "Anyway… I am Great Horn King," she said, holding the scepter out behind her in a casual twirl. "And you are the intruder I've been sent to capture."

After another bout of awkward silence, Percy leaned in. "Does that mean she wants to fight?" he asked the satyr, whispering.

Grover had started trembling, his hand still held out and pointing forward, frozen in midair save for the way it shook. "It's K-K-King. She's the d-dryad of the _Hoof_ , Percy. She's the strongest guardian, oh I can't _believe_ this! I can't believe they'd send _her_!"

"… So yes?"

"No! No, don't fight her, are you joking?"

"I see you're helping this human, Little Horn," King said. Momentarily, her eyes shifted down to Grover, and if the trembling was bad before, it was truly a sight to behold now. The whole shell shook now, making both Bolly and Percy look at the satyr with more than a touch of worry. "Unless you're actually in the process of turning him in yourself?"

"Uh… Um…"

Percy hopped off Bolly's shell. He began walking towards the dryad, reaching for the sunglasses hanging from the collar of his shirt. "Nah, we're pals."

"Ahm…"

"In that case," King said, holding her scepter before her, "I'll have to capture you both."

"Fine by me," Percy said. He slid the glasses on with one hand, grinning. "I've been getting kinda antsy anyway." He spread his legs, one hand out and waiting.

It began faster than Grover could make out. One moment, Percy stood in front of him, King further along the platform, and the next, King was gone. Percy's fist was held out before him, having punched the air. The golden scepter clattered to the ground.

Percy straightened, looking down at his hands. "Huh. That was lame." He looked around, making sure he really couldn't see the dryad anymore. "Did she fall off just like that? I didn't hit her _that_ hard."

Grover gaped, but not at the ease at which Percy had dispatched what was supposed to be the most notorious Great Horn in Clover. He gaped because, soon enough, he heard it again. The puff-puff-puff of air, like a piston shooting back and forth.

King rose up from beneath the platform. She jogged in midair, every step bouncing her a little higher. It was a strange jog, one in which the heels slammed straight down rather than across the ground. Grover would've found it funny if it didn't also signify the most horrible thing that would probably happen in his life.

Percy didn't have the same reservations.

"HAHAHAHAHA!" The boy folded over, hands on his knees, almost running out of breath.

King set foot on the platform, bending down to pick up her scepter. When she straightened, there was a hint of red on her cheeks. "T-That was uncalled for, human!" she said, rubbing her stomach. When Percy started rolling on the ground, she slammed her foot hard on the floor. "It's not that funny!"

"Y-Yes! Yes it is!" Percy eventually calmed down, picking himself up and wiping away a stray tear from under his shades. "Man… You're awesome! How can you even do that?"

King looked over the boy at Grover, her brow raised. The satyr, still scared but undoubtedly just as taken aback, shrugged his shoulders. She shook her head, pointing the tip of her scepter at Percy, the sharpness returning to her gaze.

"I see now how dangerous you are, human," she said. "… And disrespectful. Unfortunately for you, I'll have to be merciless."

Percy just smiled. "Right, right. No mercy, I have no chance, all that good stuff," he said. Once again, he raised his hand, palm out. "Hey, when I win, teach me how to do that sky walk thing, will ya?"

* * *

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	9. Book 3, Act 3

Forty-one years before, Archone walked into the Clover conference room. Usually, it would be full of stern-faced Great Horns looking over charts, throwing out numbers, speaking about a promising congress seat to ascend to, or a rally to lead. But as she closed the door behind her, she saw that most of the seats were empty.

All except for three at the front. The Clover high command. Leneus sat at the head, a hand scratching his blossoming beard. On his right was Asterion, the Minotaur, fingers intertwined under his chin. They both looked rather serious, but that wasn't anything new to her.

It was the last one who worried her. Erato's sad eyes met her own, and in them she saw a hesitation she hadn't expected to ever see from her fellow dryad. Ever since Archone had known her, Erato had been as quick to anger as she was to amuse, a spontaneity that spread into her decisions as Elder of the Reclaimer Branch. Now, Archone got the impression that Erato didn't want to be in the room at all.

"Archone. Take a seat," Leneus said. When she didn't move, looking around the table at all the empty seats, he sighed. "Wherever you like. Make yourself comfortable."

Archone would've ordinarily sat close to them, but this time, she felt too perturbed. She sat at the other end.

"What's this about?" Archone said. She'd been uncomfortable since the moment she stepped into the room, but it wasn't like she could just stand up and leave. These three were her friends, but something about them now put her on edge. She could feel her heart dropping ever so slowly, she didn't know why, but she felt it as surely as she felt all the thousands of Little Horns crawling up and down her tunnels.

"Archone… Before anything, I want you to know that we'll always be grateful to you for giving Clover a home," Asterion said. He was fidgeting a bit, his hands coming to meet on the table in front of him. "We'll always have that debt to you. We'll always be there for you. No matter what happens next—"

"Seleina got cut down," Leneus said.

Immediately, Asterion shot up from his seat with a clatter. His hands slammed hard on the table. "Leneus!"

"There's no point beating around the bushes," Leneus said. He was still sitting, calmly, not facing anyone in particular, still scratching his beard. "Not for this."

Archone knew that Leneus wasn't feeling as nonchalant as he acted. He was as passionate a satyr as any other, perhaps more so. It was in his moments of greatest distress that he kept himself under control. And so, with that knowledge, one she'd gained over the past ten years working closely with him, she also knew he was telling the absolute truth. But she still couldn't believe it.

The dryad sunk into her seat, slowly. Her heart was still falling, deeper and deeper. The hole it fell into seemed to have no end. "Seleina… You're sure…"

"We just heard today," Leneus said. He glanced up at Asterion, calming him with a look. Huffing, the Minotaur took his seat again. Leneus combed a hand through his hair. "Last Skyscraper Redwood falls in North Carolina. That was the headline."

Erato now picked her turn to speak. "You know what this means…"

She was alone. That's what it meant, Archone knew. She was now alone forever. The last of her kind. She could feel tears streaming down her cheeks, and with a start she realized they'd been falling since she sat in the chair. She'd known, from the moment she walked into the room, that something terrible had happened. Like an echo across a valley, she'd felt the death of her sister Seleina before she'd discovered its truth.

Years later, Archone would finally join Clover properly as an agent. After a month as a Little Horn, she'd get promoted straight to Great Horn. She would choose to work in the Guardian Branch, under the satyr she respected the most, and climb her way up the ranks to eventually become the most powerful dryad in her forest. Leneus would then rename her as King, the protector of Clover, and the last Skyscraper Redwood in the world.

* * *

Now, on the platform which wrapped all around the Hoof, Percy and King stared each other down.

The first move in a fight is also the most important. Like many things in life, a battle follows what could be considered a sort of rhythm. Momentum shifts from one side to the other, and it's in these shifts that a battle is decided. So, the initiator of these shifts stands to gain a certain advantage, the momentum carried by that initiation being that which flows through the maneuvers, the attacks, the defenses, all building up to a dance in which that first move—the first punch thrown, or the first charge, or even the first heckle—signals who will be leading.

Even at twelve years old, Percy knew this instinctively. The knowledge wasn't in his head, stored away for a future lecture, but rather in his body. Seeped in the marrow of his bones. All the blood and sweat he'd soaked up like a sponge during all the fights he'd had through his short life was there, singing to him in a soundless tongue, and this is what ultimately made him raise his hand and point it at King despite Grover's protests screaming out behind him.

But King could hear the same singing. She'd been a warrior for thousands of years, defending herself from countless spirits, men, and beasts that had tried to steal her away. The largest tree in a whole hemisphere had plenty of chances for combat.

The dryad ducked and charged under the invisible punch that shot out of Percy's hand. She could feel the air move above her, whipping her autumn-yellow hair back. In a second, she was right under Percy's outstretched arm. "I've already seen that trick!" she said, the tip of her scepter rising towards his chin.

Percy bent backwards with a gasp, the scepter barely missing his nose. He fell onto his back, then pushed himself up with his hands and kicked the scepter out of the way. Twisting like a break dancer, his other foot came around to kick King's head.

She jumped just in time, flipping over him and setting down right in front of Grover. Her scepter came around, set to clobber him off the snail he was saddled on. Grover shouted, pulling on Bolly's reins and leaning as far back as he could.

Percy saw all this happening, understood it in an instant, and followed through with his twist, hands spinning his whole body around. His foot stretched out towards King's ankles, and just before her scepter could pound Grover's head into oblivion, he tripped her.

King caught herself with one hand, glared back at Percy, and saw him bringing his other foot around. She leaped over him again, spinning in the air and landing with grace where she'd been before, with Percy between her and Grover. The boy rolled onto his feet, legs spread out, hands pointing at her. He wasn't smiling anymore.

"No fair," Percy said. "You know this guy's in your club, right?"

King looked him over icily. Her eyes swept up to Grover, making the satyr flinch and look away. "Not anymore he's not. Helping an intruder sneak into our headquarters, and a human one at that? Treason. He'll be lucky to get exiled."

That did it. Whatever nerve Grover had left him, and despair quickly took its place. His face paled, and he faced down at the shell he sat on, not seeing anything, barely able to hear anything either. "No… I didn't mean… I…"

Percy glanced back at his friend, and King took advantage. It took her only a moment to thrust the tip of her scepter at him, and it took Percy all his reflexive instinct to cock his head out of the way. She kept it up, stabbing forward and pulling back with her scepter like a piston working at full capacity. The boy dodged most of the attacks, twisting and turning and weaving out of the way, but he was getting nicked as time went on. Small cuts littered his clothes, then scratches on his skin. King had drawn first blood.

"If anything, I'd be doing him a favor!" she said, still attacking. She stepped forward, and Percy was forced to step back, her stabs too fast for him, "You think any forest would take him after all this? After betraying Clover? His name is marked for life! He might as well just die now!"

Percy's teeth ground together. He stepped forward, the scepter cutting deep into his side, and with a grunt of exertion, he grabbed the shaft and held it in place against him. His other hand pulled back in a fist, and with another step, he punched King right in the face.

"Shut UUUUUP!" he said, and sent the dryad sailing back in the air. She landed on the wooden platform twenty feet away, almost falling off the edge. Her head hung down, and she looked at the dark bottom of the forest far below. Then, she noticed that her hands were free. The scepter was still in Percy's hands.

King struggled up to her feet. She could already feel her cheek starting to bruise. "This won't be simple, will it?" she said, lowly, as if to herself. Then, she walked calmly to the side of the Hoof and set her palm flat against its surface. She began muttering something, her soft words lost to the howling winds.

"Grover," Percy said, not turning to look back. The satyr was still near catatonic, but he raised his head at the sound of his name. He saw Percy's back, the scepter in the boy's small hands. Then, Grover saw as Percy casually tossed the scepter off the platform. His eyes followed the glinting metal pole as it fell, fell, fell into the dark. "Get outta here. I can't beat her up if I gotta be taking care of you the whole time too."

"Too late," King said. She took her hand off the trunk, looking down at the two. The dryad saw Percy bring his hands up, felt the glare behind his sunglasses, and it made her smile. It was a wicked smile, curling over the sides of her face. "You see, there's a reason I'm always the one called to hunt down interlopers. I _am_ this great tree. It's roots and its branches are mere extensions of myself. I feel all its residents like ants crawling on my skin. And when I feel the need to send for insurance, my words travel through its bark as easily as they flow from my lips."

Grover's glazed eyes stared back at her, seeing nothing. Percy kept glaring, hands still up and ready to move at a moment's notice. Bolly shivered in her shell. The sound of wind and fluttering leaves surrounded them. The four of them stayed like this for a good, long while.

King stared at Percy. She noticed how unchanged his face was. "Did you understand anything I just said?" she asked.

Percy stared at King. "….. No."

King palmed her face. "I called back up. Just now. Back up is coming."

"Oh." Percy stayed as he was for a bit more as her words fully registered. Then, his arms lowered. "Oh shit."

He twirled around. "Bolly!" he said. The gigantopod straightened at once, as if on attention. "Get Grover out! Hear me? Get him _out_!"

As he was saying this, King had taken his lack of attention as another chance to charge. She ran towards him, and Percy turned to meet her charge just in time for her hands to wrap around his arm. With a strength hidden behind her lithe frame, she swung him up over her head and back down, slamming him onto the wooden platform with a crack. Percy immediately tried to get up, but King's foot whipped out and stomped on his chest, locking him into place. She pulled on his arm, earning a gasp of pain out of the boy.

"Perhaps my insurance was unwarranted," she said. Her head swerved towards Bolly, who had begun to turn around, a useless Grover in tow. "You, stay right there. Unless you also wish to be deemed a traitor!"

Percy turned his head to the side and spat out a wad of blood. Then, he grinned up at the dryad. "Wanna know the first thing I noticed about this place of yours?" he said.

King's eyes returned to him, flat. "I don't believe you'd have noticed something _I_ wouldn't."

"Well… I thought it was sweet how this platform of yours goes around and around. Beats having stairs." Percy's free hand came to rest on the platform beneath him. "I bet you it's not that big of a fall from this floor to the one under."

The dryad's eyes narrowed. "What do you think you're—"

Something slammed her down alongside him. Or, more like several somethings, all of them invisible to her, but very, very real. King was pounded down again and again, as if punched by a hundred fists all at once, all of them gluing her onto the platform until the wooden panels couldn't handle the pressure. Something cracked.

Percy looked up at Bolly. "Don't get caught," he said, winking at her under his sunglasses. Then, the platform under him and King broke apart, sending both into the waiting shadows bellow.

* * *

Malcolm was lost. The corridors within the Hoof formed a sort of inescapable labyrinth, something he wished he'd known before splitting from Katie and the camp group. Already he'd lost count of how many staircases, slopes, turns, and junctions he'd come across, not to mention the ones he'd actually taken.

Annabeth had told him that Grover Underwood had been in Clover ever since she'd come to camp. That was four years, and in that time, the satyr must've climbed the ranks. If he was to be found anywhere, it would be in the higher floors, where Great Horns lived and where Middle Horns stayed in between missions. Malcolm knew there was always the off chance that Grover had been so unfortunate or pathetic as to not get promoted during that time, in which case he'd need to go to the Little Horn rooms closer to the base of the tree, but he had to make a decision. So, Malcolm decided to go up, and took any fork in the road that led him in that direction.

There were times during his journey where a satyr or nymph crossed his path—either on the night shift or in search of a midnight snack—but in these encounters he'd merely stood flat against the wall, invisible to them, and watched as they passed right in front of him bleary-eyed and stumbling from sleep. Every time, he'd sent a quick prayer to his mother Athena, thanking her for gifting Annabeth with such a fantastically useful cap.

After what felt like hours of climbing, his way lit only by the dim light of stray fireflies and accompanied mainly by the faint snores of the Hoof's residents, Malcolm finally found a way outside. This wasn't where he'd wanted to go, but the location of the Great and Middle Horn rooms was a complete mystery to him. Plus, he was happy enough to see the sky after so much time in what felt like an underground dungeon, even covered in clouds as it was.

Malcolm let out a breath, enjoying the outdoor breeze caressing his hair and cheek, feeling inside him the same welling up of excitement that he'd had to clamp down on ever since he'd snuck into Clover. He felt like a spy going undercover, and every once in a while he'd find himself crouching and tiptoeing even with nobody around, for no other reason than because he'd seen it done in the movies.

But he wasn't there on vacation, and it wasn't like he could enjoy the view with how dark it was, so he made to turn around and head back inside on his search. Then, something caught his eye.

On his left was a path, splitting from the main platform and onto one of the Hoof's major branches. At its end was a large, semi-spherical shape, like a ball stuck halfway into the ground. It was the only form of outside construction Malcolm had seen since coming to Clover, and after a moment of thought, remembering everything he'd learned about the organization so far, he realized that the structure must be one of the main huts.

There were three, one for each branch of Clover. Searchers, Reclaimers, and Guardians. Whichever one he'd stumbled onto, it was a treasure trove of information. At that moment, his feet already taking him closer, Malcolm decided his meeting with Grover Underwood could wait.

The hut was made from weaved straw, and Malcolm couldn't help but recall the old story he'd been told by his parents as a child. _Let me in, let me in, little pig, or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in,_ he thought, placing a hand against the wall. To his surprise, it didn't so much as budge. He knocked on it, lightly, and felt as if he'd been knocking against hard wood. The stuff was layered well, it seemed.

There wasn't a front door, but a large red curtain. Guardians, then, red being their color. The place didn't have any windows—if there was someone inside, Malcolm wouldn't be able to tell until he came in himself. The front curtain magically opening itself up would be fairly suspicious to anyone working late.

Malcolm stood there, hesitating, then eventually shook himself out of it. It was late enough by then that no one should be inside, and even if someone was, the risk was worth taking. When else would he get the chance? So, taking a deep breath, Malcolm slowly slid the curtain aside. It opened soundlessly, to the boy's silent relief, and he took the opportunity to peek through the slit he'd made.

His eyes roamed the hut's interior, finding desks with neatly stacked parchment, a giant bowl of water over by a corner, and a few fireflies to light its otherwise empty space. Perfect. Malcolm slipped in.

The fireflies weren't the best source of light, but they would have to be enough. Malcolm walked through the hut's interior, a place that seemed to him more like an office than anything else. There were a dozen desks, all of them clean and ordered in two rows, so that they made a corridor from the entrance to the head table on the other side of the room.

Speaking of which, that head table—Leneus', he had to assume, and he was right—was surrounded by so much paperwork that Malcolm almost gave up right then. The idea that he'd be able to find anything useful amongst what would assuredly be mostly menial, everyday documentation was laughable, and he didn't have all night. But he was already there inside the hut, so Malcolm checked his watch. It was half past midnight. Ten minutes, he decided. Ten minutes, and if he didn't find anything that looked important or interesting, he'd leave. His choice made, Malcolm went to the first stack of papers, swiped the top one, and began reading.

 _Petition to send MHs to Channel Islands—Approved._

 _Petition to run for Oklahoma Senate—Approved._

 _Petition to defend against off-shore mining on the Gulf—Denied._

Malcolm read through the stacks, glancing at the headings and moving on. He got through around thirty before something caught his eye.

 _Callback of Ohio MHs for Jubilee—Effective Immediately._

It was the first document he'd seen that wasn't a petition. It seemed to him that most of these papers were written up by Great Horns or Middle Horns—MHs, as the docs called them. Then, at some point, if they weren't scratched off by the lower rungs, they'd eventually get sent up to Leneus for final approval. But this callback wasn't a petition. There was no approval or denial, only _effective immediately_. He frowned, but read on.

 _Petition to expand Yellowstone border lines—Denied._

 _Petition to combat against corporate buyout of local park in Milford, Connecticut—Approved._

 _Callback of New Mexico MHs for Jubilee—Effective Immediately._

Another one. Malcolm began piling petitions on one side of him and callbacks on the other. Some other, miscellaneous documentation didn't fit into his system—the alert reports, for example, when Guardian MHs asked for backup or wanted to bring attention to a breach of environmental security somewhere—but he just put them on a third stack. Malcolm continued reading, and soon enough, ten minutes and more had gone by without his notice.

 _Callback of New York MHs for Jubilee—Effective Immediately._

 _Callback of Minnesota MHs for Jubilee—Effective Immediately_

 _Callback of Oregon HDs for Jubilee—Effective Immediately._

 _Callback_

 _Callback_

 _Callback_

The callbacks were well-hidden under all the petitions and reports, but organizing them as he had, Malcolm began seeing just how many Middle Horns had been ordered back to the Hoof. And as he saw this, as the number of MHs began filling his mental ticking count, a nagging question grew with that number: _Where were all these Middle Horns, then?_

Katie had told him that the dining hall had been full, but not bursting. That most Middle Horns had been unable to take time off. It made sense—Middle Horns were Clover's primary agents, constantly out in the world performing missions. But if Malcolm had his estimates right, and he always did, the amount of Guardian Middle Horns getting called back home would be so glaring that it couldn't be ignored. The Hoof was big, but it wasn't so big that thousands of extra forest spirits hanging around wouldn't be noticed.

There was something fishy going on. They'd suspected it, but now Malcolm knew for sure. These Middle Horns were being hidden, given room and board somewhere outside the Hoof, but why? Who were they hiding from?

The campers, Malcolm thought, but then shook his head. The campers didn't know anything about Clover, not really. They weren't part of the organization, so how would they tell the difference between a normal amount of agents in HQ and an abnormal one? They simply couldn't. That only left…

Clover itself. Or rather, its other branches. The Searchers and Reclaimers.

Malcolm heard footsteps. Clops, to be accurate, but whatever the case, there was someone outside. Heart jumping up his throat, he shot up and looked around for a place to hide before remembering that he was invisible. He still had to be careful, however, and so he slowly tiptoed behind the stacks of paperwork, peeking his head out.

The curtain slid open. A massive hand held it, easily bigger than Malcolm's head. Behind it followed an arm ripped with bulging veins visible even in the low firefly light. It was a stocky satyr, shirtless and with hair curled into an afro. Malcolm would've thought him fat if it wasn't for the very clear and defining lines of muscle.

"Here it is," the satyr said, voice heavy but tinged with a strange playfulness, like a bodybuilder playing tag.

Another satyr came in behind the first one, and the difference between the two was palpable. Whereas the second looked rather normal for his kind, the former, the large, stocky one, looked like he'd been born into a smallness which he'd worked his entire life to breaking out of. And it had worked. While short, the sheer power expressed by every movement seemed to ripple through the air and into Malcolm's very soul. It was enough to render his invisibility useless in Malcolm's eyes, and a wave of anxiety washed over him.

"The Guardian's Hut? Really?" the other satyr said. "Rook, if this is another one of your dumb, 'it's just a prank, bro' things—"

"I'm dead serious," said the stocky satyr. Rook. "The intruder's definitely somewhere here. He can probably hear us right now."

Panic. Delirium, confusion, but most of all, deadly panic. Malcolm had to cover his moth with both hands to keep from screaming. He blinked, feeling the beginnings of tears, because _they knew_. He looked around him for a window, a hole, something, but found nothing. They knew, and he had nowhere to run.

"Hear that, little intruder?" Rook said, grinning. "You should've known you'd get found out. Satyrs can sniff you demigods out no problem, and you're the only one not with the rest, so following the trail was easy peasy."

The scent! Of course, the scent! Malcolm began backing away, not believing that he'd been so _stupid_. So utterly stupid! Satyrs, just like monsters, could sniff out that peculiar demigod smell through the Mist! It was the reason they were requested so often by camp, to sniff out future prospects! It had been how he'd joined camp to begin with!

His back hit the wall, and Malcolm again stopped himself from releasing the smallest gasp, but it was too late. Even the slight thud he'd made was heard, and now both satyrs perked their heads up in his direction.

"Come out, come out, little human," Rook said, and his smile looked to Malcolm like the smile of a demon. "You won't get in trouble. Not _much_ anyway. Maybe we'll let you live. Since you're so into paperwork, maybe I'll just make you my own personal assistant for life!"

"Not happening," the other satyr said.

Rook shrugged. "It's either that or I'll keep not working. Leneus'll see things my way."

The two satyrs neared. Malcolm could feel himself about to break, that thin strand of control he had over himself strained to snapping. The room began shrinking around him, the desks stretched into the distance of his pupils, and the satyrs, silhouetted against the bit of light there was, seemed to him like shadows already cast upon him. Rook's smile was all there was, a white row of sharp, malicious teeth.

Then, when the satyrs were but two steps away, Rook's dank, warm breath curling around Malcolm's face, they both froze. Rook looked back at his buddy, frowning, and the other satyr looked rather smug.

"I told you he wasn't here," the other satyr said, crossing his arms.

"But I smelled him! I _still_ smell him! Don't you?"

The other shrugged. "There's enough of those demigods to stink up the whole place. We're _all_ smelling them, all the time."

"But… But…"

"C'mon, you heard King. Reinforcements, now." The other satyr grabbed Rook by the arm and began dragging him away.

Malcolm saw the two make their way out, Rook casting his eyes around the room in utter confusion the whole way. In seconds, they were gone, their talk fading into the night. His breathing stilled. His tears, which had been streaking down his cheeks, dried. But his heart kept beating, and Malcolm got on his knees, clasped his hands, and gave his undying thanks to whoever it was that had gotten their attention. _Thank the gods,_ he thought, _thank the gods, and thank you for getting caught, whoever you are, you poor, poor bastard._

* * *

Like Percy thought, the fall between one level of the outside platform to the other wasn't that big. Just four stories. Enough that most would break something upon impact, but that wasn't something to worry about for either him or King, They were both fairly tough.

The platform wasn't, though. The moment they hit, it broke again, and Percy was left dangling off the edge of the hole he'd just made with his body. He looked down at his dangling feet, saw the pieces of sanded wood falling and hitting something he couldn't see below with a loud rattle. Above him, King was getting back to her feet, safe and sound on stable ground.

As before, King was quick to take advantage. She brought her foot up and slammed it down on the precious fingers Percy was using to keep himself from falling.

"Ah!" he shouted, his hurt hand letting go on its own. King brought her foot back up, aiming for the other, wanting to see him fall down another level and see how that treated him. Before she could, Percy used his now free hand to grab onto the supports that ran under the platform; wooden beams nailed to the side of the Hoof like diagonal monkey bars. "Follow me down here if you can!" he said, swinging through them and away from her.

It was a hard thing to swing from one beam to the other. He could barely see as it was, the stray fireflies that had barely lit the platform surface now completely unable to bring any light underneath. His sunglasses also didn't help, but he wasn't taking those off, obviously.

Suddenly, a scepter stabbed through the platform and down in front of him, just barely grazing his nose. It pulled back up, and Percy leaned forward to peep through the hole it left behind. He met King's furious eyes, and gulped as he saw her pull the scepter back up for another stab at him.

"I thought I got rid of that thing!" he said, swinging away just in time to avoid another thrust. Sawdust and large splinters exploded behind him, the scepter barreling through the wood like a cannonball.

"It's made of amber, you imbecile! Sap!" King said, stabbing down again in another geyser of broken wood. "I can make as many as I want!"

Percy kept moving, avoiding one thrust after another, off-balance whenever one of King's attacks broke apart the beam he'd been using. The dryad was having an easier time, simply following her own path of destruction, marching calmly to where she could feel Percy cling to and spearing the spot between her feet.

"Weren't dryads supposed to be all hippie-yippy or something?" he said, jumping onto another beam as the one he stood on just moments before got obliterated.

"It's my duty to guard Clover!" King said. She winced when she took a step forward, feeling the spot on her hip where she'd landed, but she powered through it. "I am its home! You think I'd let just anyone walk into me and start causing trouble?"

Another thrust of her scepter almost stabbed through Percy's skull. With a huff, the boy decided he'd had enough. "I can make holes too, y'know!" he said, aiming his hand up at her through the platform boards.

It was only his warning that saved her. The moment she heard that, she understood its implication and dived forward, barely avoiding the invisible force that shattered the floor underneath her into a thousand splinters. Another explosion followed right after, next to the previous one, and then another, and another. King realized that Percy meant to obliterate every bit of the platform he had to until he reached her.

So she jumped. King swan dived off just as the wooden panels beneath her were smashed by the invisible missile. Percy watched her fall, twist in the air, and then begin jogging on it like before, the puffing sound once again settling to the beat of her step. The dryad effectively hovered in front of him, falling and rising in rhythm.

"Forgot I could do this?" she asked, then bounced off the air and towards him, the tip of her scepter surging forward.

"Yes!" Percy said, jumping to another beam. The scepter stabbed into the trunk behind him. "How can you even _do_ that?"

"Meet enough wind spirits and you learn a few tricks," King said, pulling her scepter out. "My wind hop isn't perfect, but it's certainly enough to deal with you!"

"That doesn't explain anything!" Percy said. He dodged a few more of her thrusts, his hand rising towards her but interrupted every time. Anytime he tried to flip around to the platform's edge to get some floor under him, King blocked his way. It was hard enough to move around by clinging and swinging between the supports without her incessant advance, so he knew he had to jump back onto solid ground if he didn't want to try his own failing hand at flying.

Then, Percy thought back. For the first time in a long time, he began thinking about his powers. His ability to move things with his mind. Well, why not?

"You're not the only one who can fight gravity," he said, avoiding another thrust of King's scepter.

His words were strange enough to give the dryad pause. "What?" she said.

Percy readjusted his sunglasses, his other hand resting on his hip. His voice came out buttery smooth. "I… can also fly."

"… You're joking."

"Don't underestimate me!" Percy said, and without any further hesitation, he jumped, diving with his arms over his head just like he'd seen King do.

"You fool!" King said, her shout fading, her figure receding into the dark as he fell.

Percy focused, willing his power to wrap around him, imagining invisible arms extend out of him and carry him in their hands.

It worked for a second, or he felt like it did, but then he had a sudden moment of intense self-awareness. The arms he imagined were, after all, coming out of _him_. He was the anchor of all his actions. Whenever he moved something, it was done relative to his position. Now, his position was midair, falling to his death. But he didn't scream. He smiled instead, because if there was anything he'd learned, it was that screaming never seemed to solve his problems. So, the wind whipping around him, his stomach flipping around and around inside him, Percy started solving. How would he survive?

His body needed an anchor for itself. He tried to grab onto air, but that didn't work. There were intimations of grit, of texture, but not nearly enough for the big, clumsy appendages he was imagining to grapple with. There was only one other thing he could find, could sense within his mind's periphery. A lithe figure, bouncing up and down in the air.

"I guess I can't fly after all!" Percy said, his smile widening. He grabbed her, and just like that, she became his anchor. An anchor that wasn't heavy enough to properly set him in place. Immediately, she dropped with him.

" _What in the gods!"_

To King, it felt like she'd suddenly gained a hundred pounds. The shock of it was enough to pause her wind hopping, and she found herself free-falling alongside the trunk of her tree, watching its cracks and the passing light of fireflies whip by in streaks. Then, she got herself under control and began stepping on air once more. It worked, but she was so _heavy_. What was once a light jog was now an intense sprint, like she was running up a mountain with a bag of rocks strapped to her back. Slowly, she rose, the platform coming into view above her.

"That's it!" Percy called up at her, laughing hysterically. He hung midair, turning and flipping but otherwise fixed in his position, the distance between him and King static across the emptiness. There was an invisible rope tying them together, he knew. He could feel it. It was there because he'd tied it. "Get us outta this mess!" He laughed again, not bothering to hide it.

"I don't know how you did this, human, but I will _destroy_ you the moment I do!" King shouted, grunting and huffing in exertion as she climbed ever so slowly up to the platform. Her legs were submerged in lava, they were so hot, but to let the heat stop her was death, and the platform was almost within reach. She dropped her scepter entirely and stretched both arms out towards salvation.

She reached. King pulled herself up to the platform, panting and sweating, and rolled onto her back. Her chest rose again and again, her breath strained and heaving, and she could already feel her legs numbing sore.

When Percy pulled himself up, he effortlessly got onto his feet, brushed at his shoulders, and looked down at the exhausted dryad next to him. "Uh, you alright? I didn't think I was _that_ heavy."

King glowered up at him, struggling onto her elbows. "You mongrel… I'll kill you…" Her words came out slowly, with long groans in between. Legs shaking, she got onto her feet, and Percy let her. She pulled her arm back and threw a punch at him.

There was nothing behind it. Her hips didn't turn with it and her fist was barely closed. Percy took a step back, and it swept lazily in front of him, arm slumping back to her side.

"You sure skipped out on cardio, huh?" Percy said, putting his hands in his pockets. "Wanna quit? I'll let you quit."

"Never…" King tried to punch him again, and Percy backed up another step towards the trunk wall.

"Man, what a lame ending to a fight," he said, walking back as she shuffled forward. It looked to him like King could fall any second, her legs bent and trembling under her own weight. But he wasn't a monster. He wouldn't finish her off when it seemed she would crumble any second regardless. Then, his back hit the trunk, and King's head raised in a flash. Percy saw her eyes, and in them he found a fire still smoldering.

A strange orange liquid squirted out of the trunk's crevices, spilling out onto his shoulders, arms, and legs, clumping together and hardening just as quickly as it had appeared. The orange turned to yellow, and then to shiny gold. Percy shouted, first in disgust at the sticky sensation and then in shock when he tried to move away and couldn't. The hardened liquid—amber, he realized—immobilized him completely. The stuff was tough as iron.

"For your information," King said, combing her frazzled hair back out of her face, "I start every day out with a run. A run in the _sky_. Cardio is my specialty."

Her legs were still burning, but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. Soreness was something she'd grown used to. But that wasn't something Percy had to know, not until she'd inadvertently backed him into the corner he was in now.

King smiled then, placing a hand over Percy's head and leaning down to shove her smug face in front of his. "How's that for an ending?" she said.

Percy frowned, lips pouting in annoyance. "It's still lame. You cheated."

King's smile dipped. "… No I didn't."

"Yuh-huh. You were all tired and stuff, but that was a lie, right? You cheated."

"It's not cheating. It's using your lack of knowledge on me as an advantage."

"Yeah, cheating, that's what I said."

"It's not—" King stopped herself, bringing a hand up to her forehead. "Actually, this isn't a contest, so what does it matter? You're an intruder, not a sparring partner." She moved away, hands on her hips. "I'll just wait here until reinforcements arrive. They'll take you to a cell, and then you're not my problem anymore."

Percy's frown deepened. "Y'know, you've been pretty cheaty this whole time. Trying to hit Grover in the middle of our fight, what was up with that?" His frown left. Under his sunglasses, his eyes reflected only boredom now. "Well, if that's how you're gonna play it, then I don't have to be fair either."

"What's that supposed to—"

King's head flew back. Something had slammed her right on the nose. Before she could even register it, something else hit her in the stomach, bowling her over. Then her bicep. Then the small of her back. Then her shin, sweeping her off her feet, but another blow to the chest stopped her from falling.

The floodgates burst open. Hundreds of blows rammed into her, all over her body, not an inch of flesh left unblemished. King's cries of pain were cut short each and every time but the seemingly infinite and invisible barrage that came from all directions, suspending her in place like an enclosed pinball surrounded by a circle of flippers. With one final blow, King slammed into the ground, shaking it, almost breaking it. Her broken body lay there, head staring up at Percy with widened eyes that only spoke of sheer surprise.

She had it in herself to speak only five words before the darkness that surrounded her vision consumed it. "You… couldn't point at me…."

Percy stared down at her, expressionless. "I only do that 'cuz it looks cool."

She passed out. Percy kept staring at her battered body, the soft green skin now reddened and purpled in splotches. He sighed, and then flexed against his amber prison.

Nothing happened.

Frowning, Percy flexed again. The amber didn't so much as crack. His non-expression slowly shifted to pure, instinctual rage, and he screamed as he flexed one last time, using every bit of strength he had in him, even pounding on the hardened sap from outside with the same intensity he had with King, hands tightened in fists, veins popping from his neck and forehead, a bit of spittle squeezing out of the corners of his mouth. The amber didn't break. Percy's head slumped.

"Aw maaan, I really didn't think this through," he said to himself. Then, looking at King's unconscious form, "Hey, green lady, any chance you could get me outta here? Hellooo?" A soft moan was his only response.

He heard rumbling. Clopping sounds, a whole army of them, getting louder. Footsteps, except too sharp, like everyone running towards him was wearing tap shoes. Percy tried again to pull against his binds, eyes closed and failing all the while, listening as the clopping got closer. He didn't stop until he heard Bolly's distinct mewl.

Percy opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by the tips of wooden spears, all of them carved to a fine point. Eyes roaming, he saw that they were all held by a crowd of satyrs, each of them with their own individual scowl. Behind them, King was being lightly draped over the shell of a gigantipod, one of many, some being ridden by other satyrs.

Finally, Percy saw Bolly being herself pointed at with several spears. She gave him a full-body shake, what he figured was her version of a shrug, as if to say, _I tried_. Grover was still sitting listlessly atop her shell, his current guard not even bothering to threaten him into obedience.

A couple of dryads were led to him, making their way through the wall of mean-looking satyrs, and their hands lay themselves on the amber. It began bubbling, then melting in large blotches, and Percy could already feel himself regaining his freedom of movement. The spears were still firmly locked on him, however.

"Don't try anything, human," one of the satyrs said, head gesturing towards Bolly and Grover. The spears around them raised as if in response.

Percy sighed, already beginning to raise his hands. He might've tried to take them on if it were only himself at risk. As it was, he began raising his hands in the air as soon as his arms were free of the amber. A grimace crossed his face, not only at the surrender, but also at the traces of sap left on his clothes and skin. He could feel some under his pants.

"I won't," he said, "but your jail better have a shower."

* * *

 **AN:**

 **If you hadn't noticed by now, this will be a very, very long story. I'd say we're something like 1/3 of the way through Book 3, and I'm planning on over 10. Consider this an epic.**

 **If you're interested, I have other stories. A Harry Potter one called _Bullseye!_ , more of a slice-of-life kind of thing, and a Naruto one called _Plan B_ which unbelievably might disengage from the source material even more than this one.**

 **Follow, favorite, and review.**


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